


yesterday feels like a year ago (but i don't wanna let anyone know)

by chasingcrowns, cherylbombshells



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cheryl Blossom Does NOT Need A Hug, F/F, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Toni Topaz Needs a Hug, and a family!, but she does get a couple anyways, preemptively fixing whatever the writers will fuck up, some others are mentioned but this is Tonidale!, toni gets a backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25673155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingcrowns/pseuds/chasingcrowns, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherylbombshells/pseuds/cherylbombshells
Summary: With the end of their senior year coming to a close, Toni’s ready to attend prom, graduate, and move on from Riverdale High with Cheryl. The unexpected appearance of her estranged — and most likely disapproving — mother might complicate that plan a bit, though.
Relationships: Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz
Comments: 46
Kudos: 140





	1. part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i) Since nobody else wrote about the Toni/Choni teases RAS dropped for the end of S4, we decided to write it ourselves.  
> ii) More focused on Toni's family and their beef with the Blossoms than prom and the ~star crossed lovers stuff.  
> iii) Was supposed to be a one-shot but got long, so expect part two sometime later in the week, since it's already done.  
> iv) Title is kinda from Everything I Wanted by Billie Eilish, with a bit of tweaking.  
> v) This is less what we actually expect to happen, and more about what we would like to see happen.

**i.**

Toni’s never been a big fan of rain.

Shitty trailers leak and sink into mud, her bike offers no source of protection when she’s caught while on it, and trying to find a couch to crash on is even less fun when you’re soaked through to the bone.

But now, as she listens to the rain patter against her bedroom window from the comfort and safety of Thistlehouse, she finds she doesn’t mind it so much anymore. Especially when it’s accompanied by the endearing rambling of her dramatic girlfriend, recapping the meeting she had to sit in on after school this afternoon.

“Prom is in just over three weeks,” Toni comments as she watches Cheryl look through her side of the closet for tomorrow’s outfit. “How is it possible that they haven’t picked a theme yet?”

“They did, remember?” Cheryl replies with a sigh, considering the checkered, long sleeve black shirt in her hands before looking over at the girl sprawled out on their bed. “But Honey promptly vetoed it before it could truly gain legs.”

Ah, yes, Toni remembers that hard fought battle well. “Of course, how could I forget the big _Euphoria_ letdown?”

“It was just ridiculous!” the redhead complains, distractedly putting the shirt away and practically stomping back into the room and towards her girlfriend. “That Machiavellian killjoy acted as if the prom committee was requesting to hand out fentanyl to students at the door! All they wanted was neon lighting and intricate eye makeup.”

She crawls onto the bed and collapses beside Toni with a huff, ever the drama queen. Because she’s into that, Toni immediately shifts closer and looks down at her fondly.

“Maybe it was for the best,” she tries, brushing red hair out of Cheryl’s face, then carefully smoothing an eyebrow out with her thumb. “You know we would’ve been the only ones that could’ve pulled off that look, anyways.”

Cheryl’s pout lingers for a moment longer before her eyes flash and a smile falls into it’s place. “You make an excellent point, T.T.,” she concedes, her fingers curling around Toni’s belt loops. “All the more reason to push for it again now that Principal Buzzkill has been vanquished to the pits of prep school.” She pulls the smaller girl even closer, until she’s practically laying on top of her. “We’ll be the belles of the ball, and all my wildest prom dreams will finally come true.”

“Speaking of, that crown is definitely yours this year, babe,” Toni promises her surely, fully prepared to force Fangs, Reggie and Kevin to stuff the ballot box for her if she has to.

“I believe you mean those _crowns_ are _ours_ ,” Cheryl corrects her with a softening grin, that hunger for the title not quite as strong as it was last year, at least not yet.

She’s been so focused on making sure prom even happens at all — and that they can both go — that winning the prom queen title hasn’t been as much of a priority this year.

“Ours,” Toni amends with a smile of her own, but before she can press it against Cheryl’s, the buzzing of her phone pulls her attention, and body, away. “Hold that thought, that might be Betty about the yearbook.”

Cheryl’s pout reforms quickly as Toni rolls across the bed to grab her phone from her nightstand, and she must notice the look of confusion on her face, because instead of insulting her cousin, she asks, “Who is it, my love?”

“I don’t know,” Toni answers with a furrowed brow, turning her phone to show her girlfriend the somewhat ominous _Unknown Caller_ I.D. on the screen. “Should I answer it?”

“If you dare,” the redhead laughs humorlessly, running her fingers through her hair as she sits up. “We do live in Riverdale, after all.”

And as good of a point as that is, Toni taps her screen without giving it much more thought and brings the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, baby!” an enthusiastic and all too familiar voice rings through the speaker, making Toni tense immediately.

“ _Mom?_ ” the pink haired girl questions in bewilderment, glancing over at Cheryl to find her face mirroring her surprise. “Why are you calling now? _How_ are you calling now? And from what phone?”

All very valid questions, considering Toni only speaks to her mother once a month, and always on the same day — which most definitely isn’t today.

“I’m out!” is the only explanation her mother gives her, the pure joy in her voice making it obvious to Toni that she’s for real, somehow. “I’m finally a free woman, baby, and I’m coming to see you.”

Toni’s eyes widen, all of her other questions of _how_ and _why_ immediately going on the backburner as she processes what her mother’s saying.

She glances back at Cheryl’s very curious face again before she pushes herself off the bed, as if putting some distance between them right now is going to do anything to solve this sudden freight train of a problem that’s now barreling straight towards her at high speed.

“What, what do you mean?” Toni asks cautiously, stepping further away. “You’re on your way to Riverdale?”

“Sure am,” her mother confirms, her grin obvious even through the phone. “Your brother picked me up so we could come straight there. So I sure hope that uncle of yours has got room for two more in that trailer.”

Toni cringes, eyes sweeping over the view of the Blossom property she can see from the foggy, rain soaked window of her and Cheryl’s bedroom. “Don’t go to Sunnyside,” she tells her firmly. “It’s a long story, but we don’t live there anymore.”

“Did you know your sister moved?” Toni hears her mother ask her brother, and she doesn’t need to hear the older boy’s reply to know the answer: he didn’t. “Well, you can tell me all about that later,” she says, talking to Toni again. “Just tell me where the heck we’re supposed to go now then.”

Thinking on her feet, Toni blurts out the first place she can think of that’s not Thistlehouse. “Pop’s,” she suggests, trying to keep her voice level so neither her mother or girlfriend pick up on anything. “You remember that place, right?”

“On the northside?” her mother clarifies, already sounding suspicious.

But Toni brushes right past it. “That’s the one. Text me when you’re in town and I’ll meet you guys there.”

“Alright,” the older woman agrees, even though she sounds very skeptical. “We’ll see you soon, baby. I love you.”

Toni shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah, you too,” before she hangs up with a sigh.

“That was your mother?” Cheryl asks before she has a chance to get lost in her head, worrying about the sudden turn this afternoon — and her life — has just taken. “She’s been released?”

She nods dumbly, holding up her phone. “She’s out,” Toni affirms, her mind running a mile a minute, too fast for any one thought to settle for too long. “And she’s coming here.”

“But you told her to convene at Pop’s?” Cheryl wonders, the real question of _why_ going unsaid. “You could have invited her here. Thistlehouse is your home, too, mon amour; any family of yours is more than welcome, you must know that.”

Cheryl’s words are obviously sincere, and so is the worry lacing them; Toni’s sure she’s thinking of their issues from the year before, that have long been resolved.

“I know that, babe,” she reassures her, moving back towards the other girl. She slips her phone into her back pocket, keeping it close for when her mother texts later, and climbs back onto the bed. “It’s just, it’s complicated with my mom, and I need to talk to her about some things first.”

“Whatever about?” the redhead questions with a scrunched face and a slight tilt of her head. “You two speak fairly often.”

And while it’s true, it’s not entirely so; they talk, but not about everything.

Not about Cheryl.

“I haven’t actually told her about us,” Toni reluctantly reveals, forcing herself not to look away from her girlfriend’s reaction.

Which, turns out, ends up being a lot more understanding than she was expecting. “Oh, T.T.,” Cheryl sighs sympathetically, reaching out for her hand. “That’s okay. I realize I’ve been shortsighted in the past, but you could have told me that. Surely you know I, more than anyone, would be empathetic to the plight of having a homophobic mother.”

Toni groans at her girlfriend’s sweet words and even sweeter touch, wondering why she ever thought hiding this from her was a good idea.

The truth was always going to come out eventually, and the wait will just make this sting worse.

“It’s not about that,” Toni admits with more than a little hesitation, trying to find the words and the courage to say them. “It’s not me dating a girl she’s gonna have a problem with. It’s about me dating a _Blossom_.”

And even though there’s plenty of reasons the Blossoms are hated by many residents of Riverdale, Toni knows she doesn’t have to go into specifics when it only takes a few moments for recognition to flash in Cheryl’s brown, wide eyes.

“Great-great-great-great grandpappy Blossom,” she guesses correctly in one, her shoulders slumping and her eyes immediately filling with guilt that’s not her responsibility to bear. “Oh, she’s going to absolutely _hate_ me,” she cries, sounding distressed at the possibility.

The tragic history between the Topaz and Blossom families is something they’ve both been aware of since before they even started dating, but it’s not something they’ve ever discussed.

For Toni, Cheryl said all she needed to that afternoon she stood with the Serpents in protest of Pickens Day, but she knows her mother won’t be as easily won over.

“Even if she does,” Toni starts firmly, not wanting to sugarcoat the truth for the other girl. “ _I_ love you, and that’s all that matters.”

Her words do little to ease the obvious worry written across Cheryl’s face. “But—”

“No _buts_ ,” she cuts her off, forcing a smile she hopes looks carefree onto her face. She doesn’t want Cheryl stressing herself out about something she has no control over; Toni’s already worried about this enough for the both of them. “Your mother hates me, and that’s never stopped you from being with me, has it?”

“That’s entirely different,” Cheryl protests, and she’s right.

Penelope had an irrational need to control her daughter’s life and would have hated any girl Cheryl dated just for the mere fact that they were a girl, while her own mother has a much more logical reason to not approve of her girlfriend.

But still, Toni shakes her head.

“Not to me.” Toni cups pale cheeks and pulls her girlfriend closer, pressing a firm kiss to her lips. “It’s gonna be fine, baby. Just let me talk to her first, okay?”

Cheryl doesn’t look at all convinced, but Toni kisses her again before she can give any more of her worries a voice.

**ii.**

It’s still raining by the time Toni arrives at Pop’s, a heavy downpour filled with vengeance.

For a brief moment, she regrets asking Cheryl to let her do this alone, because now, as she stands outside of the welcoming and familiar diner she’s come to love in recent years, Toni doesn’t feel anything but terrified _._

She hasn’t seen her mother in over _six years._

And it’s not _her_ fault, not at all; she was just a kid with a mother that chose a shitty boyfriend over her, and they both ended up paying the price for it.

It’s a messy, depressing, complicated story, just like all of the other stories Toni has to tell, but just as she’s beginning to get lost in the memories of what she wishes had happened (and what she wishes _hadn’t_ ), a clap of thunder echoes throughout the parking lot, and the previously light drizzle accelerates into bullets of rain.

Toni takes a deep breath, tightens her jacket around herself, and steps through the door.

It’s relatively empty inside, save for a middle-aged woman working her way through a slice of pie; Toni settles into a booth tucked into the corner, far away from anyone else.

With the place so quiet, there’s nothing to distract her from getting lost in her thoughts.

She feels herself beginning to feel overwhelmed by all of the possible scenarios that could happen as soon as her mother walks in, when the buzzing of her phone catches her attention, and her eyes settle upon the words, _You got this, T.T.. Message me if you need anything, xx,_ from Cheryl.

Toni feels the corners of her lips twitch up into a smile, even if she still feels too anxious to respond.

A rogue crack of thunder sounds somewhere, and the rain rattles against the window like it’s seeking out the warmth of the diner, too. Pop flashes her a questioning glance, as if offering her her usual, but Toni politely declines; she doesn’t think she’d be able to stomach any food right now.

Time passes, and Toni begins to wonder if her mother is even coming at all, but then the door swings open and the bell attached to it rings, and in walks a figure that, despite having not seen in a _long_ time, she’d recognize anywhere.

Karla Topaz does a quick scan of the place, and when her eyes settle upon her daughter, her lips spread into a smile that’s bright enough to light up the entire diner.

“Oh, what a sight for sore eyes you are,” she murmurs, immediately rushing over to the girl and encompassing her in a tight hug. Toni can’t deny the flood of warmth that seems to fill her body at the sight of her mother; at the _feeling_ of her mother hugging her. “It is _so_ good to see you again, baby.”

And despite the fact that she still harbours bitter feelings towards Karla because of everything that went wrong all those years ago, Toni closes her eyes, and hugs her back just as tightly.

“You too,” she mumbles into her wet coat.

“God, look how much you’ve grown!” Karla exclaims after pulling away, a hand still on Toni’s shoulder as she scans her up and down with that same smile still on her face, while Toni takes in the way her mother looks now with less enthusiasm. “You look so different! And your hair!” Karla moves her hand so that a couple of strands of pink lay flat in her palm. “You’re absolutely gorgeous.” She pulls Toni back into a hug. “I missed you _so_ much.”

“Yeah,” Toni mutters out after a pregnant pause; a small smile of her own finally takes residency upon her own face. “I missed you, too.”

(It’s not as simple as that, but it’s true.)

A few more words of greeting are exchanged and then they eventually sit down in the booth Toni had claimed for them; Karla orders a salad when their waiter asks her if he can get them anything, and Toni just orders herself a small chocolate shake.

“Thomas refused to stop on the way over here, so I’m starving,” Karla explains once the waiter walks away. Toni turns her attention from the angry droplets on the windows to her mother’s face at the mention of her brother; he’s the only family Toni never had a problem with. “You’re not hungry?”

Toni shakes her head. “I ate before I came,” she says, which isn’t a _complete_ lie — Cheryl had made them sandwiches for lunch, and even though that was more than a few hours ago, Toni still can’t find it in herself to feel very hungry. “Where is he, anyway? Tommy?”

Karla looks amused at the obvious eagerness of her question. “He went to go visit your grandpa, something about giving us time to catch up by ourselves,” she waves her hand. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you tomorrow.”

Toni nods her head at the thought; although it hasn’t been as long since she last saw her brother, she still misses him just as much, even if they talked more often than Toni did with her mom. “I think that can be rearranged.”

There’s a heavy pause as Karla crosses her arms over the table, brown eyes tracing over Toni’s face and hair, the lull of the rain against the window the only other noise.

“So, first things first,” she smiles, and it must be infectious, because Toni finds herself smiling a little bit, too. “When did you decide to change your hair?”

Admittedly, that’s not what Toni expected Karla to be the most curious about; it’s certainly not what _she’s_ most eager to share, not when the questions of _why_ and _how_ her mother is here in the first place are lingering over them, but after a moment of thinking, she figures her mother just might be trying to keep the conversation light to start.

And well, Toni can work with that.

“The summer before my freshman year,” she answers, as honest as she can. “It was only a few weeks after I moved here.” The matter of _why_ she moved goes unspoken, even though they both know the reason. “I just wanted a fresh start, you know? For high school.”

Karla nods her head, brown eyes filled with curiosity, as if she really does just want to catch up with her daughter. “And why pink?”

Toni’s eyes flash down to the pink curls that lay over her shoulders, pinned back so that they’re out of her face. “I think it was the only color left in the store,” she admits. “As you know, the southside was never really supplied all that often, so when I went to one of the drugstores and there was actually a box of hair dye, I just grabbed it without really paying attention to the color. I got one of the Serpents to help me out, and when it actually turned out alright, I just decided to keep it.”

Her mother just listens patiently and attentively, but at Toni’s unintentional mention of the Serpents, she narrows her eyes.

“The Serpents?” she echoes, and Toni stiffens, having not realized her slip up until now. “So you ended up fitting in with the ones in Riverdale?”

Toni clenches her jaw; the Serpents mean _everything_ to Karla, she _is_ legacy after all. The problem is that she doesn’t know that her daughter was exiled from the gang because of a stupid mistake, and Toni does _not_ want to get into any of that right now.

So she just nods instead of verbalizing an answer, and just as she’s about to try and say something to diverge the conversation from where she knows it’s heading, she’s saved by the reappearance of their waiter.

There’s a pause in the conversation as he sets down Karla’s salad and drink and Toni’s chocolate milkshake, and as her mother takes a bite, Toni takes a moment to think, and then decides to just go on and ask the inevitable.

“Can I ask you a question?” she begins, just because she isn’t really sure how else to start. Karla nods her head, taking a quick sip of her water, and Toni forces herself to continue before she can overthink anything. “What are you… doing here?” It’s quiet for a beat. Karla raises a brow, and Toni stumbles. “I just mean, last I heard from you, you weren’t up for parole for at least another few months,” she explains, her words kind of jumbled and fast.

There’s a very awkward moment of silence, at least to Toni, but then her mother smiles.

“It’s a long story,” she admits after she’s swallowed down another bite of food. “But to make it short, the place was getting a little crowded, so there was a new hearing, and the judge granted me an early release. I was able to give your brother a call since he was in town, and he was available to come pick me up.” Toni nods along, playing with the straw of her drink as she carefully takes in the words. “Then I got in the car, called you, and now I’m here, sitting in a booth at Pop’s and trying to catch up with my daughter.”

Toni risks a glance up from the milkshake she's only taken a single sip of to look at her mother, who’s watching her with a lighthearted smile that Toni hasn’t seen in a long time.

“So… that’s it?” she asks. “Just like that? You’re a free woman now?”

Karla grins. “You betcha.”

It’d be a lie if Toni said she didn’t feel some sort of relief at the thought; she’s missed her mother, _a lot,_ and she had come to accept that she would probably miss plenty of big moments in her life, but to have her here now with the knowledge that she won’t be going away again any time soon—

 _“Wait,”_ Toni says, furrowing her brows. “Are you going to stay here? In Riverdale?” she asks, genuinely curious to hear what her mother’s plan is.

“Of course,” Karla says, as if it were obvious. “I’m gonna try and see if I can get a job, if anyone’s hiring around here. Maybe move in with your grandpa or uncle for a bit so I can get myself back on my feet.” Toni smiles at the thought, fears suddenly forgotten, but of course it’s short lived, as her mother continues. “Speaking of your uncle, why am I here, and not at the trailer?”

Toni takes a second to gather her wits and decide how exactly she’s going to respond to that. She had gone over it more than a few times in her head on the drive over, but as her mother stares at her with brown eyes that resemble her own, filled with just a bit of suspicion, Toni finds herself blanking.

“We, uh,” she starts, taking a long sip of her milkshake to stall for time. “We don’t… live there anymore.”

Karla tilts her head. “Yeah, you mentioned that. Did you two move?”

Toni shrugs sort of helplessly. “Um, yeah. There was like, a big showdown with the Ghoulies and this megalomaniac mob boss, and we lost the trailer park, so everyone had to move to Uktena land; the Serpents are still all camped out there in tents and stuff.”

The furrow of her mother’s brow deepens. “So why aren’t we there?”

 _Here comes the hard part,_ Toni thinks.

“Because, the Serpents may live there, but _I_ don’t live with them,” she says a bit pointedly, using her straw to swirl her milkshake around. Karla opens her mouth to speak, but Toni doesn’t have to wait to know what she’s going to ask, so she answers first. “I live with my girlfriend.”

A faint smile appears on her mother's lips at the words. “Your girlfriend?” she asks, her smile only growing. “You didn’t tell me you were dating anyone.”

Toni brings her hand up to her neck. “It just never came up in conversation, I guess.”

Karla doesn’t seem too bothered by it; instead, she simply pushes her now empty salad bowl aside, and looks back up at Toni. “Well, tell me about her. How long have you two been dating? It must be serious if you’re shackin’ up.”

Toni tries to bury her internal panic and settles on just being honest.

“Just over two years,” she answers, as a small smile of her own forms. “We’re polar opposites; I didn’t think we’d really get along at first, but it’s like we really compliment each other, balance each other out. Other people don’t get her, but she’s just—she’s amazing.”

Karla’s grin only grows. “Well, I’d love to meet her. Why aren’t we over there right now?”

Toni wrings her fingers together underneath the table. “Because it’s deeper into the northside, and I didn’t think you’d… approve. Pop’s is a bit more of a neutral place.”

Her mother looks confused. “You thought I wouldn’t approve of it just because it’s on the northside?” she asks. “I mean, sure, you dating a northsider is a little surprising, especially if they’re the same as I’ve always remembered, but it’s not that big of a deal.”

 _Trust me,_ Toni thinks, _this is going to be a big deal._

“Well, it’s… it’s more than that,” she sighs. “It’s more of _where_ it is on the northside.”

Karla raises a brow. “Well, where do you live then?”

“Thistlehouse.”

“Your house has a _name?”_

Toni swallows thickly. “Well… the Blossom estate is pretty big, and it’s hard to keep track of them all…”

Karla is suddenly staring at her with wide eyes. “Did I— did I hear that correctly?” she asks, seemingly more puzzled than anything else. “Did you say the Blossom estate? You live on the _Blossom_ estate?” Toni only gives a small nod. “As in, the Blossom Maple company?”

“Yes.”

“Clifford and Penelope Blossom.”

“Well, _they_ don’t exactly live there anymore—”

“Wait, you’re _dating_ a _Blossom?_ You’re dating Clifford and Penelope Blossom’s daughter?”

“Yes, but—”

“Oh my God,” her mother cuts her off, and Toni’s frown deepens. Her mother doesn’t look angry, or anything like she thought she would be, but more shocked and upset than anything else. “You’re dating a Blossom.”

“She’s not like them,” Toni snaps, feeling herself beginning to grow impatient. “I _know_ our history with them, I wouldn’t just date her if I knew she was like the rest. She’s _different,_ Mom. You can’t just judge her without at least giving her a chance.”

Her mother narrows her eyes and opens her mouth to say something else, just as the waiter sets their bill down on the table. Toni startles, and sits up in her seat.

“Have a nice day,” he says, a bit too sardonic for Toni’s taste, and then heads over to clean off another table.

It’s quiet for a moment, the air suddenly filled with tension, and Toni stares down at her milkshake with a frown.

“Fine,” Karla finally says, voice lower. “Fine. Are you planning on letting me give her a chance, then?”

“I— I guess, yeah,” Toni says, a little surprised that her mother jumped on board so quickly, even if she still looks opposed.

“Great,” the older woman sighs, before fishing a ten dollar bill that Tommy probably gave her out of the pocket of her jacket and laying in on the table. Toni watches her movements in silence as Karla begins to button up her jacket. “Tomorrow?”

 _So soon?_ Toni thinks, surprised at the apparent eagerness.

Her mother raises a brow the longer Toni remains unresponsive, and eventually the pink haired girl just nods her head, for lack of any other real option.

“Yeah,” she says, standing up. “Okay, yeah. I’ll… I’ll text you directions.”

Karla gives her own small nod, and then stands up as well. She looks a little conflicted as she stares at her daughter, but then eventually reaches forward to pull her into a hug.

Toni inhales sharply, but still hugs her mother back. It’s not quite as warm as the previous one, but it's still a hug, nonetheless.

“Tomorrow,” her mother repeats after she’s pulled away, collecting her things. Toni doesn’t say anything in response; she just watches her mother walk away, the chime of the bells signaling her exit.

And as if on cue, thunder strikes and rattles the small diner, and Toni’s left wondering what kind of storm her mother might cause tomorrow.

**iii.**

Miraculously, the storm that’s been raging all day eventually comes to an end, and Toni manages to make it home without having to deal with an onslaught of rain.

The light in the foyer is still on when she arrives, but aside from that, Thistlehouse is dark and silent.

A heavy, almost distressful, feeling still lingers in her chest, and yet, as she draws closer to their room, where a dim lamp is on and her girlfriend is curled up in nothing but Toni’s flannel and a pair of pajama pants, the feeling slowly begins to dissipate.

“T.T.,” Cheryl greets with a smile, peering over the book she had been previously reading, and then sitting up against the pillows. Toni just sort of stands at the door, feeling herself relax at the comfort and familiarity of the sight — and room — as Cheryl tilts her head in question. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Toni nods, sliding off her jacket and setting it down. “I told you that you didn’t have to wait up for me,” she adds, even though she’s grateful.

Cheryl sets her book on the nightstand, and then waves her hand. “Nonsense. It’s not even late, and you know I’d rather fall asleep knowing you’re here with me.”

Toni would typically respond with something along the lines of _right, you always insist on falling asleep on top of me, even though you have more than enough space on your own side of the bed,_ but with more important thoughts lingering in the back of her mind, she finds that she’s not as focused on teasing her girlfriend.

So much has happened in the past couple of hours — and today, in general — that she’s not exactly sure how to process it all.

It's quiet for a short while as Toni gets ready for bed, all while attempting to get her thoughts in order. She’s just come back after brushing her teeth when Cheryl speaks again, a small frown on her face.

“Are you sure you’re alright, my love?” she asks. “How did it go with your mother?”

Toni licks her lips as she plugs her phone in and sets it on the nightstand, and then finally sits down on their bed, crossing her legs together.

“It went okay, I guess,” she says, and it’s not a lie; it could’ve gone much worse. “We caught up a little bit.” Cheryl smiles at that, at least. “She asked about my hair. It was... nice.”

Without thinking, Toni reaches for Cheryl’s hand and intertwines their fingers; Cheryl gives an encouraging squeeze. “And then?”

Toni sighs. “And then I told her about us.”

There’s no immediate response — when Toni finally lifts her gaze so that she can meet Cheryl’s, her eyes are patient and warm, like she’ll wait forever if she has to for Toni to work up the nerve to continue.

But still, the longer they go without speaking, Toni can see the worry from before beginning to replant itself in the redhead’s eyes. “And?”

“She wasn’t exactly happy with the idea,” Toni eventually admits after some amount of time, wincing when she sees the worry seemingly double in Cheryl’s eyes. “But she’s not — she wasn’t _mad,_ like I thought she would be,” she murmurs, honestly. “At least I don’t think so. She was more surprised, and probably a little upset, but that’s all.”

Cheryl takes her lip between her teeth, brows furrowed, and Toni knows she’s lost in thought.

With a small sigh, the smaller girl pulls her girlfriend up and into her arms, and rests her chin on a flannel clothed shoulder.

“That’s something, at least,” Cheryl reasons quietly, not sounding so sure.

“But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what she thinks,” Toni reiterates, because even if she said something along these lines a few hours ago, it doesn’t hurt to repeat it. “I love you, _so_ much, and nothing could ever change that, okay?”

Toni eventually feels Cheryl relax against her, wrapping pale lithe arms around her tiny frame and releasing a small sigh.

“I know that, T.T.,” she murmurs, and it makes Toni’s heart swell, because a year ago, Cheryl wouldn’t have been able to respond to that as confidently as she just did. “But that doesn’t matter right now; what matters is _you,_ and how you feel.” Toni opens her mouth to object, but Cheryl hushes her with a small smile. “You’ve listened to me countless amounts of times; let me listen to you tonight, even if it’s just you recounting the rest of your evening.”

Toni’s eyes find Cheryl’s in the dim red lighting of their room, before she eventually nods.

“Okay.” It’s quiet for a while, Cheryl settling them amongst the pillows, pulling the blankets up to protect them from the slight chill of their room as Toni attempts to unscramble her thoughts, before she starts once again. “It just — it felt weird, you know?” she asks, mindlessly twirling a red curl around her finger. “Like, she expected everything to be the same now that she’s gotten out of prison. But it’s just _not;_ not to me, at least. Not after what she did to land herself in there in the first place.”

There’s a pause, and Toni feels a puff of warm air against her forehead. “You’ve never actually disclosed what exactly happened,” Cheryl murmurs, voice softer than before. Toni frowns at that, even though her girlfriend is right. She’s told Cheryl bits and pieces about her mother; why she wasn’t around and where she _used_ to be, but never the full story. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” Cheryl quickly reassures her after she doesn’t respond, fingers moving up and down along her back. “I was just curious.”

“No, it’s okay,” Toni eventually sighs, abandoning the strands of red she had been playing with to look up and meet Cheryl’s eyes. “I should probably tell you at least more than what you know. I mean, it has to happen at some point, right?” Cheryl opens her mouth to protest, but Toni continues. “I _want_ to, Cher.”

Cheryl looks back at her steadily, before she gives in. “Okay.”

“My mom’s been in prison for nearly ten years, as you already know,” Toni starts, averting her gaze. “But everything she got charged for was just bullshit.” Cheryl knits her brows together in confusion, and Toni sighs. “The police caught her with drugs, but they weren’t hers. They were her boyfriend’s, and instead of letting him go down for it, my mom decided to take the fall because somehow, she’d managed to keep her record clean; I guess she just figured that would make up for the color of her skin.”

The dim lamp light illuminates Cheryl’s expression, the way her eyes immediately sadden. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, probably because she doesn’t know what else to say, but Toni doesn’t linger on the thought for long.

“She may not have been the _best_ mother in the world, but she was still a good one, up until that point.” She shrugs, and she knows there are tears beginning to form in her eyes by the way Cheryl’s frown deepens. “It just… it just felt like she chose him over me. She chose her garbage boyfriend over her own daughter, and as much as I wish everything between us could just go back to how it was, I just feel like it can’t.”

Cheryl uses the pad of her thumb to wipe at Toni’s cheeks, even though no tears have fallen yet. “And that’s _completely_ valid and understandable, Toni.”

That manages to put a small smile on Toni’s face, at least.

“I’ve barely talked about it with anyone,” she adds, voice water-clogged. “So that’s — that’s why I didn’t ever really tell you about it. At least not the whole thing.”

Cheryl frowns. “You don’t have to justify your actions, babe. I’m quite sure you had your reasons,” she reassures her, then pushes a few strands of pink hair out of her face with the back of her hand. “And I’m so sorry you had to experience that.”

Toni simply shrugs again, leaning into the hand stroking her cheek.

“Anyway,” she finally says after wiping her eyes, “I don’t really think my mother feels the same way, if how she was acting at Pop’s is anything to go by.” Her gaze settles back on Cheryl, the way her girlfriend shows that she’s listening intently to whatever Toni is saying, and it leads her to the next thing. “Which reminds me, she insisted on coming over tomorrow, after she got over the initial shock of us being together,” Toni reveals, watching Cheryl’s face for any clues on what she’s thinking. “So I said yes.”

Cheryl’s eyes widen, her voice a bit of a higher pitch than before. “Tomorrow?”

Toni swallows heavily. “Yeah. Is that not—?”

“No, of course it’s alright,” Cheryl interrupts before Toni can even finish. “This is your home too, T.T., you don’t have to ask for permission. I just… I guess I’m just a little apprehensive to meet someone who’s so important to you, especially since there’s a variety of things that could go wrong.”

And although Toni doesn’t want to say it aloud, she’s incredibly nervous, too.

“I don’t really know how it’s going to go,” she admits. “She kind of left pretty quickly after that, so we didn’t really talk about it.”

Cheryl takes her lip between her teeth. “Well, if she’s anywhere near as delightful as you are, then perhaps this will go just fine,” she teases, intertwining both of their hands together and using that as a leverage to pull the other girl closer to herself.

Toni smiles, even though there’s still a bit of anxiety stirring in her chest. Cheryl’s right; this _could_ go well, but Toni knows her mother well enough to know that it could just as easily go badly.

“Okay, sweet talker,” Toni chuckles anyway, burying the remainder of her stress to lean forward and kiss her girlfriend. “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Cheryl cups the back of Toni’s neck with her hand. “Guess we will,” she echos, and then leans back in.

**iv.**

Toni sleeps better than she thought she would, thanks to the arms wrapped around her all night and the girl they belong to, but the anxiety finds her again the next day and only gets worse the closer it gets to her mother’s visit.

But as bad as it is for her, she knows it’s Cheryl who’s suffering from it even more; she’s trying to hide it for Toni’s sake, but the pink haired girl knows her girlfriend well enough to see through any mask she tries to wear, and it’s painfully obvious that whatever confidence she felt — or feigned — last night has dissipated in the light of day.

She also knows that no amount of reassurance is going to get through to Cheryl right now, so she just lets the girl fret over everything and nothing all morning, until she gets a text from Karla a little after noon, telling her she’s on her way over.

“Oh God,” Cheryl groans when Toni informs her of the news, finally letting the transparent brave face she’s been attempting to sport slip a bit. “Do you think the twins will behave? Should we have sent them to the Coopers for the day?”

Toni exhales, glad to push her own nerves aside for a few minutes to focus on calming Cheryl’s.

“They’ll be fine, babe,” she assures her, pulling the redhead down onto the couch beside her. “We just put them down for their nap, and Nana can handle them for a couple hours if they wake up. Just chill.”

“I cannot _chill_ right now,” Cheryl replies through gritted teeth, sounding like she’s teetering the edge of hysterics before she catches herself and takes a deep breath instead. “You know very well that I don’t make good first impressions, least of all with someone that already has a preconceived notion of me due to my notorious last name. And normally, that doesn’t bother me much, but I want more than anything to get this right.”

Toni presses her lips together and winces in sympathy, because she _does_ know her girlfriend’s track record of first impressions isn’t favorable, but still asserts, “That doesn’t matter to me.”

“Yes, well, it matters a great deal to me, Toni,” the redhead retorts, already sounding way too defeated for Toni’s liking; the mask is completely off now. “What your mother thinks of me, that may not affect _our_ relationship, but it will surely affect _your_ relationship with her, and I would hate to negatively impact that. I know how much family means to you.”

If only her mother could see this version of Cheryl, Toni thinks, as she curls her fingers around the other girl’s knee and shuffles closer; if only _everyone_ could see this version of her.

Cheryl Blossom is one of the most selfless people Toni has ever met, and she hates that she’s the only person that knows it, let alone appreciates it.

“Baby,” she sighs fondly, touched by Cheryl’s concern. “It’s unbelievably sweet of you to be so worried about this, but I promise you that whatever goes down isn’t on you. Just like you and your mom, the issues I have with mine are a lot bigger than just us, okay?” Toni reaches up to cup her girlfriend’s cheek. “ _Please_ try not to stress yourself out so much.”

“I’ll try,” Cheryl promises, and even though they both know she won’t succeed, Toni still smiles and leans in for a kiss, anyways. “But first, I’m going to go check on Nana and the babies once more,” she declares as soon as they part, Toni’s words only able to do so much. “Be back in a jiffy.”

With a quick peck to the cheek, Cheryl’s shooting to her feet and rushing out of the living room and towards the stairs, giving Toni some time alone to prepare for her mother’s arrival before the doorbell rings ominously a few minutes later.

She doesn’t quite know how to describe the feeling in the pit of her stomach as she makes her way to the front door, but she tries to keep up that confidence she had with Cheryl when she opens it and finds not only her mother on the other side, but her brother, too.

“ _Tommy?_ ” is the first thing she says, nerves momentarily forgotten as a grin spreads across her face and she’s pulled into her big brother’s arms.

“Hey, Little T,” he laughs into her hair, easily lifting her off the ground.

Toni’s heart swells at the old childhood nickname, and her smile only grows when she’s back on her feet. “I didn’t know you were coming over, too.”

“Please, when I heard you were shacking up with your girlfriend on the northside, I had to come see it for myself,” Tommy teases, and unlike with her mother, Toni can immediately gauge his feelings on the subject — he’s happy for her and nothing else. “This place is legit,” he adds, gaze moving past his sister to the rest of the house.

“Yes, it’s certainly something,” Karla adds from behind them, standing stiffly in front of the closed door and eyeing the place a lot more critically.

Toni’s smile falters as her attention shifts from her brother to her mother. “H-Hey, Mom,” she greets her belatedly, tone much more unsure. She steps around Tommy to hug the older woman less enthusiastically than she hugged him.

“Hi, honey,” Karla replies with a bit more warmth, returning the hug fully until Toni pulls back and gives her a strained smile.

“Well, welcome to Thistlehouse,” she says with faux cheeriness, gesturing awkwardly to the hallway behind her. “Do you guys want a tour? Or do you just want to sit down and catch up? We were just in the living room.”

“I want a tour,” Tommy predictably answers, right as their mother voices her equally expected desire to avoid it.

Toni smiles at her brother, despite the tension she can feel coming from Karla. “Maybe later,” she appeases him, bumping his shoulder before leading her guests down the short hallway to the living room.

“Interesting decor,” her mother remarks as they enter, taking in the dark room.

And even though Toni can hear the judgment in her tone, she decides to ignore it. “Yeah, Cheryl’s got her brand, and it’s black and red,” she replies, though she’s pretty sure the interior design of any room outside of theirs is more Nana Rose’s doing than Cheryl’s.

“Where is your girlfriend, anyways?” her mother is quick to ask, taking a seat in one of the leather chairs. “I thought today was about getting to know her.”

This time, the judgment is accompanied by a hint of accusation, but Toni is too busy debating whether or not to mention the twins to give it too much thought.

“Uh, she’s just, she’s—”

“I’m right here,” Cheryl’s voice carries into the living room before she appears in the doorway, a faux, shaky smile plastered on her face. “Hello, Mrs—” she starts and then stops herself, remembering that Toni’s father was never in the picture. “— _Ms_. Topaz. It’s so nice to meet you. My apologies for my tardiness, I was just upstairs peeking in on my niece and nephew.”

Toni bites her lip as she watches the exchange, understanding why Cheryl is acting put on, but also knowing her mother will just see her as fake because of it.

“Toni didn’t mention you were babysitting today,” Karla replies, shaking Cheryl’s offered hand but not making a move to stand up to greet her. She glances over at her daughter. “We could have done this another time.”

“Oh, not to worry,” Cheryl cuts in before Toni can. “My nana is watching over them. Besides, as their legal guardians, they live here with us, so no time like the present.”

Toni flinches under her mother’s questioning gaze, just itching to correct her girlfriend’s words; she’s not technically a legal guardian to the twins herself, but she takes care of them and loves them like she is — just the same as Cheryl — and denying that for the sake of appeasing her mother feels disingenuous.

So instead of refuting Cheryl’s claims, Toni swiftly changes the subject before her mother can say anything in front of the redhead. “Babe, why don’t you go get that lemonade and all those snacks you made this morning?”

Cheryl looks momentarily surprised by the suggestion, realizing there’s obviously some kind of issue she hasn’t picked up on, but then nods, widening her smile further.

“Excellent idea, T.T.,” she agrees, clasping her hands together in front of herself. “Please excuse me for just a moment.”

The three Topazes watch as Cheryl spins on her heel and leaves the room as quickly as she entered it, but it’s Tommy that breaks the silence first.

“Damn, you must have better game than me, Teeny,” he jokes with a low whistle, hoping to break the tension that’s only increased without Cheryl’s presence.

Toni rolls her eyes. “Shut up,” she mumbles, shooting her older brother a playful glare before turning her attention to her silent mother apprehensively. “Mom?”

She knows the woman only got to see and talk to Cheryl very briefly, but she also knows that’s usually all she needs to get an impression and decide how she feels about someone, if she hadn’t already decided even before then — not that Toni would ever call her a good judge of character.

And when Karla sighs before replying, Toni already knows this one is going to be a miss, too.

“Your brother is right, she’s a very beautiful girl,” she begins. “And I understand that you’re a teenager and hormones rule over brains in matters of the heart—” Her daughter scoffs. “—but the blood in that girl’s veins is ugly, baby.”

“Come on, Ma,” Tommy chastises, like he’s already heard this before.

“ _Nothing_ about Cheryl is ugly,” Toni contends steadfastly, all too aware that the girl in question could come back at any minute, so she tries to keep her cool. “If you would just give her a chance, you’d see that she’s not like her family at all — that she’s fought to be better than them and that she’s raising Juniper and Dagwood to be better, too; that _we_ are.” This time, she takes her mother’s silence as a good sign. “ _Please_ , Mom. Just give Cheryl a chance. I _love_ her.”

The tension in the room is at an all time high, but before Karla can reply, Cheryl’s announcing her arrival as she reenters the living room, carefully balancing a tray of four glasses of lemonade and various baked goods she made earlier in an attempt to quell her anxiety.

“I hope you both enjoy cherry as much as my Toni does,” Cheryl says cheerily as she places the tray on the coffee table and takes a seat on the couch beside her girlfriend. “She assured me you’d like them.”

“I’ll eat anything,” Tommy promises her, getting out of the chair he’d settled into to grab a glass and a snack. He hums his approval after shoving some of it into his mouth. “They’re great, thanks, Red.”

Toni’s not sure she’s ever been more thankful for her big brother than she is right now, sending him a grateful smile when she feels Cheryl relax a little at her side.

Karla, of course, makes no move to do the same, but she does manage to keep her tone neutral when she asks, “So, how long have you two been together?”

Cheryl looks to Toni, as if asking permission to answer, and when she gets it, she smiles proudly when she answers. “A little over two years now.”

It comes off as an attempt to play nice and start a safe conversation, considering Toni already told her as such the day before, but her mother still almost looks impressed at the reminder, like maybe she’d forgotten that detail after everything else she learned about Cheryl.

“That’s a good deal of time for girls your age,” she acknowledges reluctantly. “And how long have you been living together?”

“A year and a half, I think,” Cheryl guesses, which Toni doesn’t dispute, despite slowly picking up on what her mother’s angle actually is — so much for giving her a chance.

Karla predictably looks much less impressed by that answer. “Living together after less than a year together? And in high school?”

Toni rolls her eyes, her patience already wearing thin as her defenses rise. “I was living in a _tent_ , Mom.”

“Yes, and since I had this big house all to myself and my nana, it seemed silly not to open my home to my amazing girlfriend,” the redhead adds on eagerly, so obviously desperate for Karla to like her.

“You mean your _poor_ girlfriend,” the older woman accuses, swiftly stomping all over that hope.

“ _Mom_ ,” both Toni and Tommy scold her at once, but Cheryl responds before they can say anything else.

“What?” she frowns, her eyes widening in confusion. “ _No!_ I mean, yes, Toni is obviously less well-to-do than I, but I don’t think of her as— that’s not at all what it was about; I just wanted her safe and _with me_. I love your daughter, Ms. Topaz. More than anything.”

Karla hums, not moved. “Do you?” she wonders rhetorically. “Or do you love what she means for you?” Off Cheryl’s continued look of confusion, she expands on her ridiculous hypothesis. “Toni tells me you’re trying to distance yourself from your family, to be better than them; what better way to do that than to date a poor girl from the southside? To make a statement against everything your family destroyed to build themselves up? To take on a charity project?”

And just like that, Toni loses what was left of her poise.

Because she understands her mother’s reservations about her dating a Blossom, she really does, but if her mind is already made up and she just came here to berate Cheryl, or to find more reasons to add to her list of disapproval, then what’s the point?

“Okay, that’s enough,” she declares, standing up. “This was a bad idea. You clearly didn’t come here with an open mind, and I’m not just gonna sit here and let you talk to my girlfriend like that.”

Her mother raises an eyebrow, as if surprised her daughter is talking back to her, but doesn’t back down. “Like what?”

“Like you know anything about her, or us,” Toni explains, gripping Cheryl’s shoulder in an effort to restrain and calm herself. “You have _no_ idea what Cheryl’s gone through — what she’s _risked_ — for me, for us, so we could be together; you have no idea how she loves me. And until you’re ready to actually _listen_ to any of it — to listen to _me_ and what _I_ want — then I don’t see why either of us should even bother trying to tell you.”

Toni’s voice stays level, despite her spike in heart rate, and her gaze stays on her mother’s, too, until the other woman stands herself.

“Fine,” Karla concedes, far too easily, though not from the kindness of her heart. “Thomas, let’s go.”

She leaves without another word or waiting for her son, who gives Cheryl a friendly smile and Toni a quick hug on his way out. “I’m sorry about her, and I’m coming back tomorrow for that tour, okay?”

It’s enough to make Toni smile, just a little. “Okay,” she agrees, shoving him away lightly.

“It was nice to meet you, Cheryl,” he makes sure to tell the redhead before he disappears to catch up with his mother, leaving the girls alone to recover.

Toni waits until she hears the front door close before she even lets herself take a breath, and then she lets out a hollow laugh.

“Well, I guess that could’ve gone worse,” she sighs, and though she’s trying to make a joke, it’s not untrue — it obviously didn’t go _well_ , but considering she didn’t yell everything she’s been holding in at her mother, it wasn’t the worst, either. “I’m sorry about her, babe.”

“No, please, don’t be,” Cheryl is quick to admonish her, gently gripping her wrist and lightly tugging her back down to the couch. “Please don’t worry about me, my love. How are _you_ feeling?”

If only Toni knew.

Her relationship with her mother has always been complicated — she thinks she has more negative emotions towards her than positive ones at this point — but a small part of her also thinks that can change, even if this has only made it worse.

“I honestly don’t know,” she admits with another sigh, running a hand down the side of her face in frustration, before leaning into her girlfriend’s embrace. “I get why she has issues with it. I mean, I didn’t tell her about us for a reason; her issues aren’t totally irrational.”

Cheryl swallows and nods her head, slipping her hand into Toni’s. “No, they’re not.”

“But it’s not your fault,” Toni is quick to add. “And we both had judgments about each other before we really got to know each other; they weren’t entirely irrational, either. But we looked past that and gave each other a chance and look at us now.” Cheryl’s smile is shaky and pained, but there. “I just know that if she did the same, she’d see you like I do.”

“Perhaps she just needs time,” the redhead offers gently, a far cry from the girl that needed reassurance less than thirty minutes ago. “She’s hated my family her whole life, yet just found out last night that you’re dating me. It took us a few times before we got it right as well, if I remember correctly.”

Toni can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up as their first few encounters play out in her memory. “Only because you were such a bitch.”

Cheryl wears the title proudly, flipping her hair as she admits to it with ease. “Guilty, but clearly that’s your type.”

“Clearly,” Toni agrees with a growing smile, leaning in to press a kiss to her girl’s lips. “But I guess you’re right,” she cedes as she pulls back. “I’ll give her a few days to cool off and open her mind and hopefully we can try again.”

“Okay,” Cheryl nods, pecking her lips once more, ready to do whatever it is Toni wants to do. “And now that we have that settled, what else are you feeling? Because contrary to popular belief, I am aware that not everything is about _moi_ , and I know that your issues with your mother stretch far beyond me.”

She’s right, of course, but that doesn’t mean Toni has an answer to give her. “I don’t know,” she says again, dropping her head on Cheryl’s shoulder.

Because maybe Toni needs some time to figure things out, too.

**v.**

The air is chilly and nips at Toni’s skin as she rides along the back roads that lead to Thistlehouse, the pale arms wrapped around her waist and the head resting against her back being her only source of warmth. The motorcycle’s juddering vibrates throughout her body even after she kills the engine, shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath upon arrival.

Part of her wants to start the bike back up and just take a meaningless drive in a futile attempt to clear her head; the other part of her knows that she’s already spent all of yesterday and today organizing her thoughts as much as possible, and this is the best it’s going to get.

And it’s worked — she isn’t nearly as stressed as she had been a couple of days ago, waiting for her mother to meet her girlfriend despite already knowing deep down how it would play out.

She’d been honest with Cheryl afterwards: what had happened wasn’t her fault, and Cheryl seemed to understand that, or at least not dwell on it for too long.

How Karla feels about all of this isn’t either of their faults, and if what she needs is a few days to cool off, then why not give it to her?

Yesterday they had discussed it only a little bit further, but not by much. Toni was content on spending all day wrapped up in the confines of Thistlehouse, politely declining Fangs and Kevin’s invitation to accompany them for a lunch at Pop’s and choosing instead to lay around and finish any homework they hadn’t done the previous day.

The air inside is considerably warmer than it was outside, but still slightly chilled as Toni sets down her own backpack in their room, along with Cheryl’s much smaller one. She sends a quick text to Tommy — _We’re home now_ — and then, after a few moments of uselessly staring at her phone, heads into the bathroom.

Tommy has responded by the time she gets out of the shower. _Can’t wait to see you!_ , the message reads, and a brief smile forms on Toni’s lips.

She gets dressed, pulling on denim shorts and a simple t-shirt, and then accompanies it with the purple flannel Cheryl has a habit of stealing.

The girl in question is already dressed and ready by the time Toni gets downstairs, having already showered and changed back at school after Vixen’s practice. She’s perched at the table, scrolling through her phone and snacking on a bag of saltines when Toni’s movements catch her attention, and a smile lights up her face.

“Would I be correct to assume that you’re ready?” she asks, voice surprisingly steady.

Toni knows that Cheryl is still a little anxious, but more than anything, she’s excited to meet her brother — genuinely meet him, not just briefly speak to him like she did a few days ago — and her excitement makes Toni excited, too.

One hand rubbing up and down her shorts, Toni nods her head. “I’m ready,” she confirms after taking a bite of the cracker Cheryl offers her.

Her hopes for this are much higher than they had been for Karla to meet Cheryl.

She may have been stressed for her mother to meet Cheryl, but this — her brother, who’s far more open minded, coming over by himself — is something else.

He’s going to come over, they’re going to give him a tour as promised, and then see where it takes them. Toni imagines they’ll take a walk along the Blossom property, not just Thistlehouse, but she’ll leave those details to Cheryl.

Tommy messages her again a little less than half an hour later to let her know he’s outside.

“Is that him?” Cheryl asks almost immediately, nervously rubbing her hands together. Toni nods, turning toward her girlfriend and then separating her hands and pulling her to her feet.

“You don’t have to be nervous, babe,” she says, hoping her smile offers at least a little bit of reassurance. “I know he’ll like you. Unlike our mother, he’s a lot easier to impress.”

“He did seem like he had a sweet personality for the brief moment I got to talk to him,” Cheryl admits, and then smiles cheekily. “I could easily tell you two were related by that alone.”

Toni fondly rolls her eyes, noting the irony of the fact that they must get it from their mother, but before she can reply, the sound of the doorbell echoes throughout the foyer, and Cheryl’s pulling her into a kiss.

“What was that for?” Toni asks with a smile after Cheryl pulls away, following her toward the door.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “For good luck. For confidence.”

Toni chuckles, and rubs the small of Cheryl’s back. “You’ll be fine, Cher.”

The first thing that Toni takes note of when she opens the door to greet her brother is that the air is already far less tense than it had been on Saturday. Tommy gives her a big smile and pulls her into a hug, just as before, and then looks at Cheryl with an eager grin.

“Cheryl, right?” he asks, offering his hand to shake. Cheryl still looks a little nervous when she nods and shakes his hand, but Toni can tell that she’s trying. “I’m Thomas, but I’m sure Little T here refers to me exclusively as Tommy,” he says, giving Toni a little nudge.

“Bold of you to assume you’re talked about,” Toni jokes, and her brother feigns offense.

“I’ve heard a bit about you,” Cheryl confirms with a slight smile.

Tommy raises a brow. “All good things, I hope,” he replies, looking pointedly at his sister. Toni gives a playful shrug, but Tommy’s attention has clearly shifted from them to his surroundings, if the look on his face is anything to go by. “So, will I finally be getting that tour I was promised?”

Any worries Toni previously felt just seem to melt away as Cheryl visibly relaxes. “Yes,” she smiles, and then looks at her girlfriend. “Shall we get started, T.T.?”

Toni easily returns the smile. “We shall.”

The tour of Thistlehouse is, objectively, great.

Cheryl guides Tommy through all of the rooms while Toni throws a word in every once in a while. Tommy remains patient and undisruptive, keeps a friendly smile on his face, and Toni feels a huge surge of affection for him the whole time. Their conversation remains brief, barely diverging from the cottage and its inhabitants.

It’s when they’ve finished that things get a little more interesting.

“This place is… insane,” Tommy says with a look of awe in his eyes after they finally arrive back in the living room.

“My nana really outdid herself with the decorations and aesthetic of it all,” Cheryl agrees, looking around. There’s a pause in the conversation, and then Cheryl glances back at Tommy with an even wider smile. “We can give you a tour of some more of the property, if you’d like?” she offers, looking over at Toni to see what she thinks of the idea.

And considering Toni figured this would happen, since Tommy seemed interested in it all, she quickly agrees. “That sounds good to me.”

“Count me in,” Tommy eagerly nods. “I’d love to see more of it all.”

Cheryl clasps her hands together, and then excuses herself to go to the restroom _‘for just a moment before we make our departure’_ , leaving Toni and Tommy alone in the foyer.

“Does she always talk like that?” is the first thing Tommy asks as soon as Cheryl is gone, and Toni can tell by the tone of his voice and the smile on his face that he’s just teasing.

It is, of course, not the first time someone’s mentioned the way Cheryl speaks; whether she’s being teased by Fangs or Jughead is rolling his eyes at it.

Toni absolutely _loves_ it.

“Pretty much,” she answers fondly, and Tommy must be able to read her tone of voice too, because he raises a brow, his eyes suddenly full of amusement.

“I like her,” he predictably decides. “And I can tell that you love her.”

And although it’s obviously not a lie, and definitely not anything Toni’s ashamed of, she still can’t help the blood that rushes to her cheeks at the comment.

She hasn’t had that many friends to tease her about her relationship with Cheryl — not since the Serpents, anyway — and Tommy’s always had a knack for teasing her about anything.

“You managed to figure that out in the fifteen minute tour she’s given you?” she tries to play it off.

“Not just that,” Tommy replies. “The way you defended her against Mom kind of let me know that you’re serious about this girl; I figured that you wouldn’t have gotten so worked about it otherwise.”

His tone has shifted so that Toni knows he’s no longer teasing her, he’s just stating what he observed.

“I am serious about her,” she murmurs, voice softer than before as she glances in the direction that Cheryl disappeared. “I’m in love with her.”

“Clearly,” he says, voice not as serious as before as he nudges her shoulder. “You’re getting all sappy and shit.”

Toni gives a fond roll of her eyes, just as Cheryl announces her return with the heeled boots she’s decided to wear today.

“What were you two chatting about in there?” she asks as they head outside, clearly more comfortable than she was less than half an hour ago.

Toni isn’t exactly sure on where they’re going, but when her girlfriend chooses the long road that leads to Thornhill, where the pines are thick and huddled close together, she’s able to venture a guess.

“You,” Tommy responds before Toni’s able to, causing her to wince when her girlfriend’s demeanor visibly changes from relaxed to apprehension. Fortunately, like herself, Tommy is also able to read other people’s emotions fairly easily, so after wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a slight side hug, he says, “Don’t worry, Red. It was nothing bad.”

Cheryl looks momentarily surprised at the show of affection, but manages to cover it up once Tommy pulls away.

She’s quiet for a moment, like she’s hesitant on what she’s going to say, but eventually grins. “I _am_ a topic of many conversations.”

Toni smiles to herself as they begin to walk in silence. The weather outside is nice; perfect for walking in, the late afternoon breeze only slightly chilly. She figures they still have a good fifteen minutes before they reach Thornhill, or wherever Cheryl plans on showing Tommy.

“The landscape here must be really different from New York, huh?” she asks just to fill the silence, but also because she’s curious about her brother’s life. “You must be too good for this little old town.”

“I barely miss it,” Tommy nods after a beat, and Toni can’t blame him. She doesn’t think _she’ll_ miss this town herself when her and Cheryl finally get out of here.

Cheryl seems to be thinking the same thing, because her next words are Toni’s thoughts. “I don’t think I'll miss this town, either.”

Tommy must sense there’s something else there, because he opens his mouth to respond, hesitates and seems to recalibrate his thoughts, then says, “New York is so much better, anyway.”

Toni raises a brow. “Care to elaborate?”

And that’s how they spend the next ten minutes listening to Tommy paint the picture of his life in New York; about the stray cat that he occasionally feeds when he sees it; the girl he’s been _talking_ to for a few weeks; the way the sunset looks from the window of his apartment; the job he was able to acquire right out of college.

It’s not hard for Toni to listen to everything her brother says, and when she looks at Cheryl, of course her girlfriend is listening intently as well.

They reach their destination only a few minutes later; the sun hangs low in the sky, and as Cheryl pushes the gates of Thornhill open, Tommy stands with his jaw hung open as he takes in the land.

“Is that _Thornhill?”_ he asks, taking a couple of steps closer.

Toni furrows her brows together and shares a look of confusion with Cheryl, and when no answer comes, Tommy turns around to look at the pair in confusion.

“I wasn’t aware you knew of the name,” Cheryl eventually says, tilting her head and looking back over at Toni, who shrugs; she didn’t know he knew about it, either.

Tommy laughs. “I spent a good part of my childhood in Riverdale before our mom moved us a couple of years after Toni was born,” he reminds them, looking back and forth between both girls. “I’ve heard plenty of stories about this place; about the Blossoms in general. We used to dare each other to climb the gates and get close to the graveyard, see who was the bravest. Everyone told stories about how this place was haunted.”

Toni feels silly for her surprise, especially considering they were just talking about him not missing Riverdale. Her brother is eight years older than her, and she knows Karla packed them up only a couple of years after she was born.

“I burned it down,” Cheryl suddenly says, stepping further away from the gates and closer to where Tommy and Toni are standing. Her arms are crossed together, and her eyes are focused on what remains of Thornhill.

Tommy’s visibly shocked. “Really?” Cheryl nods. “Was there anyone inside?”

Cheryl shakes her head, and simply answers, “No.”

Tommy turns to look back at his sister, an impressed look in his eyes, and Toni releases a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.

It’s quiet for a few moments, until Tommy turns back around to face Thornhill — or, what’s left of it, anyways — and then grins. “I _also_ heard there was a pool.”

Toni lifts her head and glances at Cheryl, who looks like she’s feeling just about as relieved as Toni is.

“Fortunately, the fire didn’t touch that,” the red haired girl smiles, and then leads the way down the long driveway.

Cheryl takes them through a variety of different places; through the overgrown garden that hasn’t been touched since the fire; around the tennis courts, where the pavement is old and cracked; even near the graveyard, although they don’t get too close.

Toni doesn’t question it, of course, and Tommy seems content on not getting too close, either.

His favorite part, predictably, does turn out to be the pool, which has managed to stay relatively clean since the last time they used it during the summer.

“I’m definitely coming back when it’s warmer,” Tommy tells them as he teeters toward the edge. Toni grins, tightening her flannel around herself and coming to stand by her girlfriend, who still has a smile of her own on her face.

“What are you smiling about?” she asks, as Tommy heads toward the other side of the pool to look around.

“He’s already inviting himself over again,” Cheryl points out, sounding a little giddy. “Do you think that means he likes me?”

Toni chuckles and can’t resist pecking her girlfriend’s smiling lips.

“He definitely likes you, babe,” she reassures her, thinking about their words from earlier, when Tommy had confirmed it himself. “And there will be plenty of time for you to visit in the future,” she adds, raising her voice to make sure she’s heard from across the pool, where Tommy is standing.

“There will be?” he asks, looking hopeful. Toni grins, looking over to her girlfriend.

“Yeah,” Cheryl says, and it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Toni to know that the smile on her face is the most genuine one yet. “There will be.”

They make it back to Thistlehouse just before the sun finishes setting, the sky having progressively gotten darker on their walk.

“I should probably get going,” Tommy tells them only a few minutes after they get back, pulling out his phone to look at the time. “Ma will probably be wondering where I’ve run off to, since we’re both staying with Grandpa for a while.”

Toni winces at the mention of her mother; they’d been doing so well.

“Uh, yeah,” she agrees, as Tommy slides on his jacket. “How is she? Did she say anything about what happened on Saturday?”

Tommy let’s out a chuckle at Toni’s words. “You better believe she had a lot to talk about after that,” he says. “I think she’s calmed down now, though, and probably knows how she acted was pretty uncalled for.” Toni nods her head, vaguely familiar with how her mother tends to work. “You could give her a call, you know.”

“I probably will,” Toni sighs, crossing her arms.

“I’ll try to talk to her, though,” he makes sure to tell them, glancing at Cheryl. “Try to convince her to give Red a chance, despite the fact that her own daughter went off on her,” he adds, glancing back at Toni with a grin.

“I didn’t go off on her,” Toni grumbles.

Tommy chuckles. “You kind of went off on her.”

Toni rolls her eyes at her brother’s antics, glancing back over at Cheryl, who’s staring at them both with a smile. When Toni raises a questioning eyebrow, Cheryl simply shrugs, shaking her head.

“You two remind me of Jason and myself,” she offers. “That’s all.”

Toni’s suddenly overcome with a feeling of intense guilt; she was so anxious about Cheryl meeting her mother and brother that she didn’t really stop to think about how it might make her girlfriend feel — other than anxious.

But before she can even begin to start formulating the words to express how sorry she is, Tommy swoops in.

“Who’s Jason?” he asks, looking between both Cheryl and Toni for an answer, before he begins to piece a little of it together himself. “Is that the guy in all of the pictures around here?”

Toni’s breath hitches, and she looks back at her girlfriend to gauge what she’s feeling, but it seems like she’s not upset at all, like Toni thought she would be.

“Yes. He’s my— he _was_ my twin brother, but he passed a few years ago,” she explains, voice unwavering. “My niece and nephew are his.”

Tommy’s surprise is shown by the way his lips part ever so slightly. Toni swallows the lump in her throat, turning back to look at Cheryl.

“I’m so sorry, Cher,” she apologizes, taking a few steps closer to her girlfriend, even though she still doesn’t look all that miserable, or even anything close to it. “I didn’t even think about how hard this would be for you—”

“Toni,” Cheryl quickly cuts her off, reaching for the shorter girl’s hand. “It’s fine, babe. _I’m_ fine, so don’t you dare apologize.” When Toni’s expression remains the same, Cheryl squeezes her hand. “I’m happy for you, T.T.. I promise.”

The thing is, Toni’s been with Cheryl for long enough to know when she’s putting up a facade, or when she’s masking her emotions and holding everything in only for her to explode later, and yet, now, as she searches Cheryl’s face for any signs of cracks, she can’t seem to find anything.

So she nods her head, giving Cheryl’s hand a squeeze as well, but still makes a mental note to ask her about it later when they’re alone. “Okay.”

It’s quiet for just a brief moment, before Tommy’s taking a step closer to them as he finishes buttoning his jacket together.

“Well, with the direction you two are heading in, it seems like you’ll have a brother-in-law soon, anyways,” he cheekily smiles.

Toni’s heart grows for her brother and his ability to make practically anyone feel welcomed and loved; especially when Cheryl’s smile widens, and she looks touched.

”Oh hush, we’re still in high school,” Toni laughs, easily accepting the parting hug Tommy offers her.

“And yet, you two already live together, _and_ are raising babies,” he teases as they pull away.

Toni rolls her eyes once more, but doesn’t say anything else as Tommy turns to face Cheryl. They sort of both awkwardly stand there for a moment, until Cheryl gives him her hand to shake, only for Tommy to open his arms.

“Come on,” he smiles. “I think we’re already past the shaking hands stage.”

Cheryl suddenly looks like she’s about five seconds away from bursting into tears, and she accepts the hug Tommy offers her.

“I’ll make sure to see you two again before I head back to New York, okay?” he asks after pulling out of the hug. Toni nods, nudging him with her shoulder.

“Sounds good, Big T,” she says, and finds that she really means it; dumb childhood nickname and all.

Tommy smiles, offering them both one last wave, and then makes his exit.

**vi.**

Cheryl and Toni have a late dinner after Tommy leaves, and they discuss how they felt his visit went and how they’re feeling about it.

( _Good_ , they decide, is the answer to both.)

It isn’t until they’re tucked into bed hours later that Toni brings up the one moment near the end that she still has doubts about.

“I’m sorry again for not thinking to check in with you about how you might be feeling with Tommy around,” she reiterates her earlier apology, settling her head on her pillow and looking at her girlfriend laying across from her. “After everything with Jason earlier this year, I should’ve realized how hard it might be for you to see me with _my_ brother.”

But just like before, Cheryl shakes her head and reaches out for Toni’s hand, this time bringing it up to her lips so she can kiss her knuckles.

“Don’t be silly, my love,” the redhead assures her, same as before. “I very much meant what I said; I’m _so_ happy for you.”

And while Toni doesn’t doubt that, she finds it hard to believe that there’s no part of Cheryl that can see Toni reuniting with her brother and not feel a pang of something — hurt, sadness, envy, or even all of the above.

How could she not?

“But, baby—”

“No _buts_ ,” Cheryl interrupts her sternly, but softly. “Seeing you happy makes me happy.” She kisses Toni’s palm and then places her hand on her cheek. “I’m fully aware of how off the rails I went this year, but in the end, I think it finally brought me peace. Of course I will always miss my brother, but never so much that I begrudge you yours, _ever_.”

Toni chews on her lip, trying to believe her girlfriend’s words. They certainly sound sincere, and she doesn’t doubt Cheryl’s love for her, but _still_.

“Are you sure?” she has to ask, shuffling a little closer to get a better look at brown eyes.

Cheryl just smiles, soft and kind, and nods as she leans into the hand still cupping her face. “As much as I wish you could have met Jay Jay, I’m just as glad to have met Tommy.”

“I’m glad he got to meet you, too,” Toni agrees fondly, as it registers just how much. She’s been so fine with keeping Cheryl and the life she’s built with her separate from her family, that she never realized how good it could feel to bring those worlds together. “He really liked you.”

“You’re sure?” the other girl asks this time, still a little unsure herself.

Toni had already told her as much and Tommy didn’t do or say anything that would suggest otherwise, but Toni knows how her girl’s mind works.

“Obviously, what’s not to like?” she wonders rhetorically, narrowing her eyes when she sees Cheryl open her mouth to answer. “Don’t you dare,” she warns before she can even try, brushing her thumb over her bottom lip.

It makes Cheryl giggle softly, and easily drop that line of thought. “Well, that’s good to hear, if he’s going to be my brother-in-law one day,” she not so subtly says, reminding her of that last thing her brother left them with before leaving.

“Ugh, I’m sorry about that,” Toni responds with a groan, because for some reason, her first instinct is to apologize, even though his comments hadn’t been met with anything that requires one.

“Why for?” Cheryl wonders, smile dimming, but not falling completely.

Toni shrugs, feeling dumb. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I just didn’t know if you felt weird about him saying that; we’ve never talked about it before.”

Cheryl’s features settle into understanding and her lips curve up again. “No, we haven’t,” she agrees, shimmying towards the smaller girl so she can wrap an arm around her waist. “But if you’re wondering, it’s certainly something I’ve thought about.”

“Yeah?” Toni breathes out, pressing her forehead to Cheryl’s.

“Very much so,” the redhead confirms. “There is no version of the rest of my life that does not include you, mon coeur.”

Chest and stomach fluttering, Toni closes the last little bit of distance between them and kisses Cheryl firmly, promising her the same.

“Me neither,” she says when she pulls away, just in case Cheryl needs to hear the words, too.

And as Toni just gazes at her girl, eyes soft and open, she sees her future clearly, even in the dim red light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of part one, we hope you guys enjoyed it and will stick around for part two. Please tell us what you think!


	2. part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i) Thanks so much for the feedback for the first part, we're really glad you enjoyed it!  
> ii) This part is shorter, but a bit more dramatic to make up for it.  
> iii) Trigger warning for very brief and not at all graphic references to canon sexual assault.  
> iv) Enjoy!

**vii.**

It’s days before Toni hears from her mother.

She tries not to dwell on it — or wait for it, even — and after that first day, it doesn’t even feel much like trying.

With senior year quickly coming to a close and a live-in girlfriend that’s the student body president — not to mention her own position as _vice_ president — there’s a lot to keep her distracted.

After some compromise, Mr. Honey’s temporary replacement approves the prom committee’s previously rejected theme — euphoria, though now with a lowercase _e_ — so the actual planning of that finally starts.

They also have two twin babies crawling around a big house and learning to walk, and the race for valedictorian is a close one; though Toni’s in it, she hasn’t decided if she cares as much as Cheryl or the others who are in it, too.

(“You should,” the redhead keeps insisting any time the topic is brought up. “You worked just as hard for those flawless grades as the rest of us did, and I cannot conceive of a better person to represent our class — and best _me_ , might I add — than you, my love.”

“We’ll see,” Toni always replies back with a touched smile, and she means it a little more each time she says it.)

So when Toni finally gets a text from Karla as she’s getting ready to leave school at the end of the week, asking to try again, she’s almost surprised by it.

But before she can truly give her answer much thought, her girlfriend appears beside her, fingers hooked in the straps of her tiny red backpack and eyes curious.

“Who are you texting?” she asks instead of offering Toni a greeting, peering around her open locker door to try to read her phone screen. “The deep furrow of your cute little brow is very concerning.”

Toni sighs as she holds her phone up, though she doubts Cheryl’s able to read the message on it before she’s turning around to shut her locker door and pocket the phone.

“My mom,” she elaborates with another sigh, leading the two of them down the hall and blindly links her fingers through Cheryl’s as they walk, knowing the redhead will follow. “She said she wants another chance.”

“Then why for the long face?” Cheryl wonders in confusion, squeezing her hand. “This is good news, yes?”

If only she knew.

“I don’t know,” Toni sighs again, tired of doing it so much lately. She’d forgotten how exhausting family can be. “I mean, yeah, it’s good if she means it, but she’s the one that pushed for the last visit and she came in with her mind already made up.”

“But she’s had a week to change it,” Cheryl points out gently, reminding her of the conversation they had after Karla had left. “It was too soon last time, news and nerves much too fresh.”

Toni knows that Cheryl’s right — knew it then, and knows it now.

If she’s honest, it’s not a question of whether her mother is actually ready to try again, but whether _Toni_ is.

Her expectations had been low last time, it’s not like it going badly had been a huge surprise to her, but it still stung to have all her fears confirmed the way they were; to find out she’d been right to hide — to _protect_ — her relationship with Cheryl from her mother all this time.

But Toni doesn’t have that option anymore, not if she wants to have any kind of relationship with the woman now that she’s free.

(Which, honestly, is a completely different question for another day.)

“You’re right,” Toni decides, because trying feels easier than continuing to wonder if she should.

Her expectations are even lower now, so it’s hard to imagine her mother finding new ways to disappoint her, but she should probably know better than to underestimate her.

“I tend to be,” the redhead sing-songs with a smug smile.

Toni rolls her eyes affectionately as she pulls their linked hands up to reply to Karla. “I’ll tell her to come over around noon tomorrow,” she says as she starts typing.

“Excellent, I can make lunch,” Cheryl agrees, sounding much more optimistic and chill than she did last time.

And as Toni sends off the message and almost immediately gets a reply back, she finds her girlfriend’s attitude is a little bit contagious.

**viii.**

After a Friday date night at Pop’s and La Bonne Nuit, Cheryl and Toni get a good night’s rest so they’re ready for Karla the next day.

Before they take on Toni’s mother, however, Cheryl informs her over breakfast that they’re going to tackle their campaign posters for prom queens.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be done by the time your mère arrives,” Cheryl promises her, already pulling out the bristol board and supplies they’ll need. “Just something to soothe and/or distract you from your worrying.”

“I’m not worried,” Toni insists, though her denial sounds weak even to her own ears.

Cheryl just smiles sympathetically at her and gently pushes her down into a chair and hands her a marker. “Then you’ll have no problem concentrating on something else for a couple hours.”

Toni nods, fighting a smile, and pulls Cheryl down for a quick kiss before she takes her own seat, because she knows the redhead set this up as much for Toni’s benefit as she did for hers.

An hour later finds them with a slogan, a design, and two little redheaded helpers.

Nana Rose is in her room watching Bob Ross, and Toni has Juniper in her lap while she splits her attention between watching Cheryl in awe as she sketches a picture of them and keeping an attentive eye on Dagwood as he works on his own masterpiece on the floor by her feet.

It’s such a weirdly warm and comforting series of moments, just spending Saturday morning like this, and it really does distract Toni well enough that when the doorbell rings almost an hour before her mother is supposed to arrive, she doesn’t even remotely consider the possibility that it could be her.

Which is why she doesn’t think much of it when she leaves Cheryl to continue drawing while she and Juniper go answer the door, and why she’s so thrown when she finds her mother standing on the other side of it.

“Mom,” Toni breathes out in surprise, almost like a question, and she internally rolls her eyes at herself for being so dumb.

Somehow, her mother looks just as surprised to see her as she does. “I hope it’s okay that I’m a bit early,” she awkwardly starts, bypassing a greeting as she shifts uncomfortably in her spot.

It takes Juniper’s tiny little fist tugging at her hair to pull Toni out of her stupor. “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” the teen assures her mother as she moves back and clears a path for the older woman to enter. “Cheryl hasn’t gotten a chance to start making lunch yet, so as long as you don’t mind us not feeding you...”

“Not at all,” her mother replies, and considering she rudely refused anything offered to her last time, Toni’s not surprised.

“Okay, well, we were just in the middle of something,” she explains as she closes the front door. “So just give us a couple minutes to get things in order and then we can talk?”

Toni hates the way she always gets around her mother, like she’s still trying to get her approval after everything, when Karla should be the one desperately trying to impress _her_.

The woman nods, but before she can voice her affirmation, Cheryl’s calling out from down the hall. “Who was at the door, my love?”

Cheryl’s question — or the reminder that she’s there, rather — makes things even more awkward between the Topazes, but luckily Juniper is there to break the tension with babbling nonsense.

“Come on,” Toni tells her mother, fighting a smile as the little girl’s hands try to cup her face. She leads Karla down the short hallway and shares a look with Cheryl when the redhead looks up to find her answer. “My mom came a bit early.”

“Ms. Topaz,” Cheryl hastily greets her in surprise, quickly abandoning her work to get to her feet. “It’s nice to see you again.” She gestures down to the messy table. “I’m so sorry we aren’t properly prepared.”

Karla gives her a tight smile, but it’s better than a scowl, Toni figures. “Like I told Toni, it’s fine. I know I’m early.” Her eyes travel down to see what she interrupted, and Toni watches her take in the campaign posters.

“We’re running for prom queens,” Cheryl awkwardly informs her, as if that wasn’t obvious. “We did last year, but due to unfortunate circumstances—” Their cult leader, Toni’s oh so tempted to interject. “—we had to withdraw.”

Her mother looks away from the posters and the sketch Cheryl’s mostly finished and towards her daughter, giving her a look over. “Never would have pegged you as the prom queen type.”

It feels passive aggressive, and a glance in Cheryl’s direction tells Toni that she thinks so too, but she doesn’t take the bait.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like you know me all that well, right?” Not completely, anyways. Hurt flashes across Karla’s face, but Toni is quick to look away from it and back to her girlfriend. “Will the twins be okay with Nana in her room for a bit?”

Cheryl nods, wiping off her hands before reaching out to the baby in Toni’s arms. “They should be fine, I’ll take them now.”

Juniper whines and clings to Toni, which makes the pink haired girl’s heart throb, even if it’s just adding to the awkwardness of the moment; few things give an ego boost like being a kid’s favorite.

“It’s okay, Junebug, we can chill later, okay?” she tells the little girl, kissing her soft cheek.

“Auntie Toni just has something important to do for a little bit,” Cheryl explains gently, carefully extracting her niece from her girlfriend and bringing her into her own arms.

While his sister keeps fussing, Toni bends down to talk to Dagwood, who is still obliviously scribbling away on the floor in the middle of it all.

“Hey, Woody,” she gets his attention, brushing a hand over his ginger hair to insure she gets his attention. “What do you say you bring that up to Nana to show her?”

The little boy shrugs, unbothered. “O-tay,” he agrees easily, gathering his crayons and paper and getting to his unsteady feet.

He’s walking better than Juniper, but Cheryl takes his hand and keeps a close eye on him as she slowly leads them down the hallway towards Nana Rose’s new ground floor bedroom.

Silence hangs over the two women as the others leave, and just as Toni opens her mouth to suggest they move to the living room, her mother speaks before she can.

“You act like they’re your family,” she says evenly, but the accusation in her tone is loud and clear.

Toni tries to keep her cool as she simply replies, “Because they _are_ my family.”

Karla doesn’t have anything to say to that — or, more likely, has _too_ much to say, but doesn’t know where to start — and just shakes her head as her entire resolve crumbles just like that.

“This was a mistake,” she mumbles, more to herself than to her daughter. “I can’t listen to any more of this.”

She turns to head back towards the front door, but Toni barely lets her make it a step before she calls her out; she’s not letting her mother go so easily this time.

Fool her once...

“Of course it was,” the teen scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest and leveling the older woman with a stare that conveys so much more than just disappointment. “Yeah, just walk out on me, it’s what you’re good at.”

Karla looks surprised at her words, like she expected Toni to just let her leave without any pushback, but quickly masks it with misplaced indignation. “You can’t just expect me to stand here and listen to you claim the Blossoms as—”

“Not the _Blossoms_ , Mom,” Toni cuts her off. “Cheryl, Nana Rose, and the twins, _that’s_ my family, not the rest of them.” She thinks of Penelope and Uncle Bedford, Aunt Cricket and Cousin Fester; of Claudius, and even Clifford Blossom, who she never met but hates for everything he caused. “ _Believe_ me, there are plenty of Blossoms that I want nothing to do with.”

“You shouldn’t want anything to do with _any_ of them!” Karla snaps, raising her voice, only for Toni to do the same.

“ _Why not?!”_ she exclaims, exasperated by the woman’s stubbornness. “They’re not all some big entity, okay? Cheryl is not responsible for what her ancestors did, she’s disgusted by it! She stood with the Serpents and literally protested against her own family when she found out the truth, before we were even together — even though some Serpents were involved in her brother’s murder. She’s _nothing_ like her family; she’s not her last name, no more than I am mine.”

Toni doesn’t say it to antagonize her mother, but when it clearly does just that, she doesn’t regret it; this whole argument and her mother’s attitude are frustrating for Toni for more reasons than just protectiveness over Cheryl and their relationship.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Karla asks lowly, eyes narrowed and challenging. “You should be proud of your name.”

Toni laughs bitterly and rolls her eyes. “Oh, because you’ve done so much with it, right?” she counters, knowing she’s going low, but needing to in order to get to the root of their issues. “Let’s face it, Mom, you’re so damn proud of the Topaz legacy, but you haven’t done anything other than tarnish it.”

Her mother’s eyes harden, and so does the line of her mouth; she knows where this is going and there’s not much that would anger her more.

“You better watch your mouth,” she warns anyways, in a futile attempt to keep the upper hand.

“Just save it, okay?” her daughter sneers, not backing down now that she’s finally stepped up. “I’m proud of my last name, but not because of _you;_ because of Grandpa and _his_ legacy.”

“I can’t believe how _ungrateful_ you are.”

“And what should I be grateful to you for, exactly?” Toni demands, her own anger making way for some hard truths she’s been waiting years to call out. “Moving us to the city just so you could lead a gang? Picking the first dirtbag you could find to move in with us after Tommy left for school because — _Heaven forbid_ — you don’t have a _man_ around? Or is it that you left me with that same dirtbag for _years_ when you took the rap for him?”

“And I broke up with him for you!” Karla tries to argue, to defend herself against the laundry list that doesn’t even begin to cover all of her maternal failures.

Toni’s not the least bit impressed. “Only after he stopped coming to visit you.”

“No!” the woman yells, something more desperate slipping into her tone; something that’s closer to hurt, maybe. “No, I did that for _you_ , because of what he almost let happen to you.”

Not sure whether she skirts around saying it because she doesn’t want to upset her daughter further or to prevent her own guilt from growing deeper, Toni decides she doesn’t care.

Saying it or just alluding to it, it doesn’t change the fact that it happened.

It doesn’t erase the night her mother’s boyfriend left his drunk friend alone in their trailer with a thirteen year old Toni, or the fact that he didn’t do anything about it when she told him what his friend tried to do to her.

And it doesn’t change the fact that it took that long for Karla to finally dump him, despite constant complaints from Toni for _years_ before that.

“Oh wow, gee, thanks, Ma,” she finally responds sarcastically, still not moved by her mother’s efforts, because after years of chances, she knows better. “You know, you’re such a hypocrite, coming in here and judging who I love like you have any kind of leg to stand on to be crying about blood over water.”

Knowing she’s fighting a losing battle, Karla takes a moment to regroup, only to just deflect the blame once again. “Then this is what, pay back?” she questions. “You still resent me for my dating choices, so you chose someone you knew I’d hate to hurt me?”

The accusation might have made Toni laugh, if she wasn’t already so numb.

Her mother still just doesn’t get it.

“No,” she answers simply, more tired than upset. “No, I chose a girl who always chooses me, who has always _been_ there for me. A girl who loves me and cherishes me; who’s smart and funny and thoughtful and _so fucking_ _strong_ , you wouldn’t believe it.”

Toni could go on and on about Cheryl and all the things she loves about her, but what’s the point when she knows the other woman still isn’t listening?

All she hears is, “So you really _are_ choosing her over me?”

And she says it with such gravity, as if this is some big make-or-break moment they’ve been building up to, but Toni doesn’t feel any of it.

Because it’s a choice she made long ago, and one she makes over and over again, every day, with no plans to stop.

“If you’re making me, then yeah,” Toni answers without hesitation. “No question. So if that’s what you spent the last week deciding to do, I’d spend a _lot_ more time thinking about it if you want to be in my life.”

Karla has nothing to say to that — or if she does, is finally being smart enough not to say it — and just gives Toni one last hurtful look before she turns to leave.

She momentarily pauses her retreat when her eyes catch something out of Toni’s sight, but then her face just hardens more and she continues on her way with a parting huff.

Toni waits until the door is closed before she asks, “How much of that did you hear?”

Cheryl slowly enters the room, looking sheepish. “Enough,” she answers, tone sympathetic. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I didn’t want to make things worse by joining you, nor did I want to leave in case you needed me to intervene.”

“It’s okay, babe,” Toni waves her off, not at all bothered; they were mostly talking about her, anyway. Sensing that her girlfriend is dying to ask her a question she doesn’t have the answer to, she takes the initiative and gestures to the still messy table behind her. “If you don’t mind, I don’t really feel like—”

“Of course,” Cheryl is quick to assure her, swiftly closing the space between them to wrap Toni up in her arms. “The twins are safely tucked in with Nana for at least the next hour,” the redhead tells her softly, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back. “How about we just cuddle on the couch for a little bit, and then I can make us a nice lunch.”

That sounds like _exactly_ what Toni needs, so she just nods into the crook of Cheryl’s neck, and lets the other girl lead her across the hall to the living room.

**ix.**

Sometime later, after Toni has managed to steel herself — the process having included a long hug — she finds herself in the presence of familiar company once again.

Juniper is too busy trying to stack a few larger than necessary Lego blocks in the corner of what they’ve labeled as _the_ _twin’s room_ to give them anything to worry about, but her brother, on the other hand, is up and demanding attention.

“Auntie Cher!” he’s repeatedly saying, although he comes to a stop in front of Toni, probably having decided not to take the few extra steps to reach the other redhead. “Look!”

“What’s that, Woody?” Cheryl asks, as her nephew turns the piece of paper he had been holding around to show her.

It’s a drawing of some sort of animal — what, Toni can’t exactly tell — but Dagwood looks happy to show it off.

“Kitty!” he exclaims eagerly.

Toni blocks out the rest of their short conversation, unable to keep her mind from drifting off to earlier, no matter how hard she tries not to think about it.

It’s not like she had been _surprised_ by how the chain of events had played out, but she hadn’t necessarily expected things to erupt into a full blown argument like that, either. She had just finally lost her patience for her mother, as much as it pains her to admit, and it led to what was probably the inevitable _._

And she doesn’t regret what she said, not at all — she had finally been honest, and gotten everything she’s needed to say for years out — but while she hadn’t expected this time to go _well_ , she hadn’t expected it to go as bad as it did, either.

Toni’s pulled from her thoughts by the feeling of a hand touching her own, and when she looks down she sees Cheryl intertwining their fingers, only to bring Toni’s hand to her lips.

“What are you thinking about, my sweet?” she asks, eyes as sincere as her words.

Toni frowns, thumb rubbing against Cheryl’s knuckles, and decides to be honest, even if she’s sure Cheryl already knows what she’s thinking about.

“What happened earlier,” she says, eyes glazed on their intertwined hands. “With my mother,” she adds, as if Cheryl didn’t already know. She doesn’t respond to that, so Toni continues. “I just— I guess because of how well things went with Tommy, I sort of had my hopes at least a little higher than last time,” she admits. “It’s not like I was _surprised_ with what happened, but I was just… expecting _something_ to have changed, at least.”

“And now?” Cheryl asks after a few moments of silence, aside from Dagwood’s loud impression of a fire truck coming from only a few feet away from them.

“I don’t know,” Toni admits, playing with the rings on Cheryl’s fingers. Now that she’s had a bit of time to calm down from an argument that was filled with rather intense emotions, she isn’t sure if she knows exactly how to proceed. “ _She’s_ the one who was trying to walk out on me again,” she points out, unable to keep herself from getting defensive, even though she knows there’s no reason to. “If she wants to stay in my life, then that’s up to her, I guess, if she can prove it. But I’m done trying.”

There’s a long beat of silence — even both twins are quiet for a moment — and then Cheryl sighs. “I’m sorry.”

Toni shrugs, leaning her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, babe.”

Cheryl wraps a comforting arm around her shoulders, and Toni just leans against her, letting her eyes flutter shut.

Being here, next to her girlfriend while they simply sit here and listen to the twins play before they put them to bed, offers her an immense amount of comfort. It’s moments like these that she finds herself eternally grateful for; moments like these that remind her that everything is worth it.

“I love you,” Toni finds herself whispering, and is unable to stop herself from rejoicing when she hears those same words said back to her as always.

“I love _you,”_ Cheryl repeats, pressing a kiss into her hair. A few minutes pass, not a word being spoken between them as they just watch Juniper try to convince Dagwood to help her finish building her tower, until Cheryl continues. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she starts, and Toni can hear the hesitance laced in her voice. “When you two were arguing, what was it that you were arguing about?”

The question catches Toni off guard — she had figured Cheryl had heard most of the argument, if not all of it — but she supposes she hadn’t.

Or maybe this is just her way of getting Toni to talk about it.

Either way, Toni starts from the beginning.

“Mostly you,” she admits, because it’s the truth. “She was upset about me acting like you, the twins, and Nana Rose, are my family. I think it’s what set her off.” And then, not wanting Cheryl to think any of this is her fault, Toni adds, “But I really do think it was doomed from the start. I’m not sure if anything really changed from last week.” There’s a brief pause, and then Toni lifts her head from Cheryl’s shoulder to look up at her, continuing before she can change her mind. “That sort of morphed into arguing about her ex-boyfriend, which then progressed into talking about what… _almost_ happened to me.”

Cheryl’s breath hitches. “When his friend tried to…?” she trails off, taking in a shaky breath. Toni simply nods, because she knows bringing up anything regarding assault is just as traumatic for Cheryl as it is for her. “I’m so sorry for what you went through.” Her darker eyes find Toni’s lighter ones, and she moves to brush her knuckles against Toni’s cheekbone. “I don’t quite recall if I’ve ever said this, but thank you for trusting me enough to open up about everything that’s happened recently.”

Toni smiles, turning her head to kiss her girl’s knuckles, and then leans in to press her mouth against Cheryl’s. It’s short and sweet — they know they’re not the only ones in the room, after all.

Juniper rubs her eyes from her place across the room; beside her, Dagwood gives a small yawn.

“Guess that’s our cue,” Toni chuckles, eventually pulling away from her girlfriend and opening her arms up to Juniper, who is already carefully walking in her direction.

Dagwood is a little harder, claiming he isn’t sleepy despite clearly being the opposite, but Cheryl leans down to whisper something into his ear that makes him willingly let himself be picked up.

(They don’t say _I love you_ again, but as Toni sways back and forth with a drowsy child in her arms and meets the soft eyes of the girl she loves standing in a similar fashion just a few feet away from her, she knows the look in her eyes conveys everything that’s left unsaid.)

**x.**

In the days after the incident, Toni continues to busy herself with the upcoming events that come with the end of their senior year.

Despite the fact that she’s not officially on the prom committee, her role as the vice president means she plays a hand in it, no matter how small. Add in the fact that their class is less than a couple of months away from graduation, and she’s given plenty of things to do.

(“Tell me why I let you convince me to be your vice president again?” Toni asks Cheryl near the end of the week, when they get home from a student body meeting that’s run far later than usual. Her stomach growls just as they unlock the door, and she heads straight to the kitchen to heat up something for herself.

“Because it looks spectacular on your college application, ma chérie,” Cheryl reminds her as she presses a kiss to her cheek, and then heads for their room, carrying both of their backpacks in hand. “Also, I wouldn’t have had the patience to put up with anyone else,” she adds from up the stairs, and Toni gives a fond roll of her eyes.)

While the weekdays move quickly, the weekend news cycle is fairly slow.

Tommy comes over Saturday afternoon — his second time seeing them this week, after Cheryl insisted he come over for dinner on Monday — and while it’s not quite warm enough to go swimming and be comfortable while doing so, he insists on getting in the pool anyway. He drags Toni in with him after a while, and eventually, they get Cheryl to abandon her sunbathing chair and sit on the side of her pool with her feet dipped in.

(She is, understandably, not a huge fan of the water.)

Sunday is just as laid back as Saturday, both Cheryl and Toni simply lying around Thistlehouse with not much to do aside from taking care of the twins. The amount of homework they receive has declined significantly as well, the closer they get to graduation.

Throughout it all, Toni tries her best not to think about what happened just a week ago; she figures there’s no point. Karla hasn’t tried reaching out to her since it happened, and even if she did — or _does_ , eventually — Toni doesn’t even know if she’d be up to giving her yet another chance.

And being busy through the week works well to distract her, so much so that Toni finds that even on a day where there’s not much to do, she doesn’t stop to dwell on everything that’s happened.

Tommy does end up coming over for dinner, however, being that he’ll be back in New York in less than a few days, and Toni rejoices in seeing him treat Cheryl like a sister, and seeing Cheryl talk to him with her typical snark and sharp tongue that’s coated in affection, reserved only for a select few amount of people.

By Tuesday, across a plate full of half eaten pizza, Tommy raises a quizzical eyebrow in Toni’s direction. The distinctive chatter of a few other patrons currently occupying the hole-in-the-wall restaurant linger in the background as Toni attempts to gauge what her brother’s thoughts are before he voices them.

“Photography, huh?” he asks, staring at her for a moment longer. “Are you any good at it?”

Toni plucks a jalapeño off of the basket of nachos they’re sharing and sticks it in her mouth. “Well, considering I got a scholarship to Highsmith college for it, I’d say so,” she says, and finds that Cheryl’s endearing brand of arrogance is probably rubbing off on her, because it comes out far more smug than she intended. “It’s been a big hobby of mine ever since I moved back to Riverdale.”

Tommy’s eyes flash with something, and then he nods his head approvingly. It’s quiet for a moment — Toni cringing when her brother shoves a chip with an insane amount of nacho cheese into his mouth — before he speaks again.

“I’m sorry,” he eventually says. Toni knits her brows together in confusion, and Tommy stares at her for a moment, before clarifying. “For not knowing that was one of your hobbies.” At Toni’s further look of confusion, Tommy sighs. “I just mean, I feel bad for not knowing more about you. The way I left… it was kind of abrupt, I guess, and… I feel bad for everything that happened while I wasn’t here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Toni immediately waves him off, taking a bite of her slice of pizza. “You were the first Topaz to go to college, and I’m happy you got to experience the highs and lows of college life like no one else in our family has done before. I was never mad about you leaving.”

Her and Tommy have a large age gap between them, and although they still had a good relationship, they weren’t as close as they could’ve been if it was smaller. Him leaving had never particularly bothered her; she understood at the time — and still does now — that he was leaving to start his own life.

Tommy stares at her for a moment, before he nods. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he finally relents, straightening up a tad. “But still, I just feel like I could’ve been more present; I could have come to visit _you_ sometimes, instead of just seeing you when I’d bring you with me to see Ma.”

“You could’ve,” Toni agrees, ignoring the mention of their mother. “But it’s not like much would’ve changed. I still appreciate you for being involved at all.”

Despite living hours away, Tommy was still the most positive male influence Toni had for most of her life; she’d take her good big brother she didn’t see often over the shitty, neglectful pseudo stepfather she was forced to live with any day.

When Tommy smiles, Toni returns it, and they spend the next few minutes trying to finish eating their food before the small restaurant on the southside closes.

At least, that’s what Toni assumes they’re trying to do, until Tommy speaks again. “And, speaking of Ma,” he starts awkwardly, and it takes a lot of willpower for Toni not to roll her eyes. “Have you talked to her about what happened?”

“Why would I?” Toni asks, and it comes out a bit more hostile than she anticipated.

Tommy shrugs before adding, “She really regrets everything that happened, you know.”

Toni clenches her jaw for a moment. “Yeah, I’m sure she felt that way after the first time, too,” she scoffs, and this time she really does roll her eyes.

Tommy seems to understand though, because his voice is softer when he continues. “I get it, T, but I think it’s different this time. She’s spent some time trying to pick up the pieces of other aspects in her life, and she’s talked to me and Grandpa about a lot of it and gotten some perspective.” When Toni doesn’t respond, Tommy adds, “I’m just saying, she might reach out to you again, and I think you should let her.”

“Can we just eat this last dinner without mentioning her?” she asks, looking up at him. “It’s your last day before you go back to New York, and I don’t want to spend it talking about her problems with my choices.”

Tommy nods after a beat, and true to what she asked, it doesn’t come up again.

And by the end of the night, as they share a parting hug and promise to see each other again this upcoming summer, Toni decides that, if nothing else, she’s grateful for at least a fraction of what’s happened over the course of these past couple of weeks because at least it lead to her reconnecting with her brother.

(Even though that optimistic perspective doesn’t last long, because the next afternoon, as she’s attempting to convince Cheryl that threatening the prom committee into cooperating with her menu suggestions is _not_ a good idea, Tommy’s prediction comes true, and she gets another message from her mother.

 _Can we try this one more time?_ is all it says, and despite its simplicity, Toni can’t help but to read it ominously.)

She doesn’t mention the message to Cheryl until later that night, when they’re relaxing on the couch after putting the twins to bed.

They’re decompressing from the surprisingly stressful day — seriously, Toni had no idea helping to plan a prom could be so taxing; she’ll have to remember to leave the wedding planning all to Cheryl — when Toni decides she no longer has any excuse not to share it.

“So what are you thinking?” her girlfriend asks when she finishes telling her what her mother said, knowing enough about how she’s felt this past week and a bit to not know how she’s feeling now.

And she’s not the only one.

“I’m not sure,” Toni admits, relaxing more against Cheryl’s chest as her red painted fingernails graze her arms absentmindedly. “I’m still pissed at her for how she acted last time; what she said to me and _about_ you.” She sighs and shakes her head a little, turning it so her temple is pressed against Cheryl’s chin. “And I don’t trust her enough to think this time will be any different.”

“That’s understandable,” the redhead beneath her agrees without hesitation, and it helps settle Toni in some way, to have her feelings validated.

It’s something she always tries to do for Cheryl, but she didn’t realize until now just how much it can help.

“Tommy thinks I should give her another chance,” Toni reminds her, having already recapped her lunch with her brother when she got home the day before. “I trust _him_ , but I don’t know.”

Cheryl hums, her chest rising against Toni’s back as she breathes out, taking a second to consider her response. “What is it that you don’t know?”

She’s trying not to lead the conversation, to just nudge Toni along, and it almost makes her smile, how gentle and thoughtful she’s being.

It’s not that she’s surprised at all — sometimes it feels like she’s the only one in the world that knows this side of her girl — but it helps, too.

Toni’s not used to talking about herself, even after doing it these past couple weeks, because she’d rather not, but she doesn’t want to bottle it all up, either.

“If I can listen to her put you down like that again,” she eventually answers, even though it’s only half the truth. And when she’s met by silence, she knows Cheryl’s waiting for the rest of it. Toni sighs. “I don’t know if I can handle her disappointing me one more time.”

She should be used to it — and in a lot of ways, she is — but Toni’s never been the type to give up, especially not on someone she loves.

“Can I say something?” Cheryl asks gently, and something in her tone has Toni sitting up and twisting around to look at her. “I would never want to push you to do something you’re uncomfortable with — least of all in regards to your family — but I also never want to be a cause of strife for you, either.”

“Cher, you’re not,” the pink haired girl is quick to insist. “You’re just about the only thing that’s been keeping me sane through all of this.” Her eyes scan her girlfriend’s face, finally seeing what might have been there for weeks. “Have you still been blaming yourself?”

The other girl shrugs sheepishly. “Perhaps a teeny bit,” she admits, the guilt swimming in her eyes plain as day now that Toni’s finally noticed it. “I just know how important having a family has been to you, and the remorse that plagues me for standing in the way of that is immeasurable.” Cheryl shakes her head and deverts her gaze from Toni’s. “I was already the cause of your rift with the Serpents, I couldn’t bear it if I were the reason you’re estranged from your mother, too.”

“You’re _not_ ,” Toni repeats firmly, leaving no room for argument. She never blamed Cheryl for what went down with the Serpents, and she certainly doesn’t blame her now, either. She waits until the other girl is looking at her again before continuing. “Baby, you’re not stopping me from having a family, you’ve _given_ me a family. You _are_ my family.”

Toni meant what she said to her mother — if she has to choose, she’s choosing Cheryl, every single time; and as long as Cheryl’s not the one _making_ her choose, that’s not her fault at all.

“And you’re mine,” Cheryl echoes with a soft, but pained, smile. “But just because the only living blood relatives of mine I can stomach — aside from Cousin Betty on occasion — already live in this house with us, doesn’t mean that we have to be _your_ only family, too.” Her fingers wrap around Toni’s thigh and squeeze gently. “I just don’t want you to sabotage a chance at something you’ve longed for, and certainly not on my account.”

Her eyes are practically pleading with Toni to understand, and of course she does.

But it’s not that simple; it never is with her mother. “The shit between me and my mom, it goes way back,” she reminds her with a sigh that feels like an admittance.

“I know,” Cheryl assures softly, that hand on her thigh moving soothingly. “And if that’s what’s really holding you back, then I completely support you — I know all too well how deep a mother can scar.” Toni bites back a snort of agreement. “Just promise me that whatever you reply to her, that it has nothing to do with me, and that you’re _sure_. I don’t want you to have any regrets about this.”

Never one to be able to refuse her girl anything, Toni can only drop her forehead against Cheryl’s and nod.

“I promise.”

And so, when Toni finally returns her mother’s text two days later, it’s only after a lot of thought.

 _Meet me at Pop’s at noon tomorrow_ , she tells her mother, not giving her any other options. _This is your last chance_.

Cheryl was right — Toni doesn’t want to have any regrets, at least not any more than she already has.

If she and her mother aren’t gonna have a relationship, she doesn’t want it to be her own fault.

Toni wants to at least be able to say she tried, and after just two chances, it doesn’t quite feel like she has yet.

And like Cheryl had mentioned the other week, where would she be now if she hadn’t given the redhead a third chance all those years ago?

**xi.**

Toni spends the next morning getting pep talks from Cheryl, who offers to accompany her to meet her mother if she wants, but who also ultimately ends up sending her off with a kiss when the time comes.

Like the first time, this feels like something Toni has to face alone, and she’s not about to risk exposing her girlfriend to more of Karla’s hate if things go as she’s expecting them to.

So when Toni parks her bike in Pop’s parking lot at exactly twelve on the dot and spots her mother already waiting in a booth through the window, she has nobody to share her surprise with.

The sight isn’t enough to quell her pessimism, but she can’t pretend she doesn’t think that just maybe this time really will be different, at least just for a second.

Shaking the feeling off, Toni adjusts her leather jacket that feels too hot for the warm sunny day and takes a deep breath before she heads towards the front door.

The ding of the bell as she enters gives her away, and she doesn’t get a chance to steel herself before her mother is twisting around in her seat to see if it’s her. Judging by the speed in which the older woman whips around — and the look on her face when she does — she’s just as anxious about this as Toni is.

Which brings her some kind of relief, honestly, and propels her the rest of the way forward.

“Toni,” her mother greets her with a shaky smile, her gaze following her as she slides into the booth across from her which is two down from where they were sitting last time. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me again.”

“I’d like the record to show that I’m here very reluctantly,” Toni replies, though the edge in her voice isn’t as sharp as she’d like.

Ugh, has she gone too soft now?

But it seems to get her message across still. “I know,” Karla nods quickly and solemnly. “Tommy told me he talked to you, and I want you to know that I didn’t put him up to that.”

“Sure.” Toni doesn’t know if she believes her, but she also doesn’t really care either way; they’re here now, so it’s moot. “He’s not why I’m here, anyways.”

“No?” her mother asks, sounding hopeful.

And Toni is quick to cut that down by following it up with, “Cheryl is.” It immediately makes the air between them thicker and makes continuing with painful pleasantries pointless. “So if you’re thinking about telling me how she’s the Antichrist because of something she had nothing to do with, just know that _this_ — me sitting here, talking to you like you wanted — is something _she_ actually did.”

“I’m not,” Karla swiftly denies, but there’s a firmness in the way she says it that makes Toni pause long enough to hear the rest of what she says. “I don’t want to fight with you, honey. I know I screwed up with you — about so much more than just how I reacted to Cheryl — but I want to make it right.”

She’s saying all the right things, and for some reason Toni’s listening, and yet still...

“Why now?” she can’t help but question warily. “What’s changed in the last week that I should believe you?”

As much as she’s tried to contain it, Toni can’t ignore that little bit of hope that’s bubbling up inside of her; that hope that maybe this time her mother really _does_ mean it.

But she’s no fool, and no amount of hope is going to override rational thought right now, so she’s keeping her guard up.

“You’re not the only one that got some good advice recently,” Karla admits with a sheepish smile. “I spoke a lot with your grandpa and your brother, about a lot of different things.”

“Yeah, Tommy mentioned that,” her daughter nods, so far not convinced, but still open.

Karla sighs that kind of sigh that comes before humbled honesty. “I know I have a _lot_ to make up for,” she begins, laying it on the table. “But what I can — _hopefully_ — make up for now is how I treated Cheryl, and how I treated you for being with her.” It’s the closest to self aware Toni’s maybe ever heard her. “I know I wasn’t being fair, that I was holding onto so much resentment that wasn’t even really mine to carry around, and I let it blind me from really seeing the girl you clearly love very much.”

“I do,” Toni can’t stop herself from confirming, a small smile fighting its way onto her face — something that tends to happen when she talks about her girlfriend. “I didn’t— I didn’t even know I was capable of loving someone as much as I love her.”

As much as Toni’s never shied away from making her feelings for Cheryl known to anyone that would listen, sharing this with her mom feels like a big deal.

She’s showing her a weakness — or at least confirming one — which is trusting her in some small way.

It’s big, but it’s also so painfully normal; it’s something mothers and daughters do.

The matching smile on Karla’s face suggests she feels the significance of the moment, too.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, baby,” she tells the teen softly, hand flexing around her coffee cup, like it’s itching to reach over and cover her own. “And I’m _s_ o sorry that I was too blinded by my hate to be happy for you. Because I am, I’m _so_ happy you’ve found someone to love, and who clearly loves you too, to put up with your awful mother.”

Toni snorts at the self deprecating joke. “Yeah, well, she’s had a lot of practice,” she replies sardonically, reaching for a napkin to start ripping up. “Not to let you off the hook too much, but you’re nothing compared to the piece of work her own mother is.”

“So I’ve heard,” Karla nods grimly, her smile dropping with her daughter’s. “I got quite the rundown on what’s gone down with the Blossoms in recent years, and everything Cheryl’s been through; I know you tried to tell me some of it, or at least allude to it, and I was too stubborn to listen to you, but I understand what you were trying to say a little better now. It sounds like your girl’s a real survivor.”

“She’s the strongest person I know,” Toni agrees without hesitation.

“And she’s quite the looker,” the woman points out again, more teasingly and cautiously than the first time she did, like she’s testing the water.

And of course Toni’s smile instantly returns. “You’re telling me,” she blushes, and as the moment of levity hangs in the air between them, something shifts, and she gives in with a resigned sigh of her own. “Look, I get why you were upset. I haven’t meant to imply that your grudge against the Blossoms is petty at all. It’s not, I know that, and so does Cheryl.” She shakes her head and lets the pieces of napkin fall through her fingers absently. “I care about our family name and our history; just because I’m dating a Blossom doesn’t mean I don’t. But Cheryl’s not like the rest of them; I wouldn’t be so in love with her if she was. She has her flaws and her demons — after everything she’s been through, of course she does — but she’s an _amazing_ person.”

And she might even be just as much of a victim of the Blossoms as they are, Toni thinks, but she keeps that thought to herself.

“I know,” her mother asserts, even though she’s made sure she doesn’t. “If you say so, then I trust you.” It’s a two way street. “But, I’d like to find out for myself. If you’d give me one more chance.”

Coming here at all was her last chance, Toni thinks, but considering it’s gone much better than her purposely low expectations feared it would, another one seems fair.

“If Cheryl’s cool with it, then so am I,” is her response, even though she’s pretty sure she can safely assume what the redhead’s answer will be. “Maybe sometime after prom though, things are really hectic right now and she doesn’t need anything else to stress over.”

“That’s right, prom,” her mother replies with obvious interest, perking up in her seat a bit as she recalls the posters she saw them making last week, before everything blew up.

“Yeah, senior prom,” Toni clarifies, not even sure if her mother is aware of what grade she’s in.

“Wow, big night.”

“We’re running for prom queens and everything,” she reminds her, surprised at how easy it is to fall into casual conversation about herself.

It makes Karla smile. “You must be a shoo-in.”

“Hopefully,” the pink haired girl breathes out, getting a little stressed just thinking about it. “I don’t really care that much personally, but it’s a big deal to Cheryl and she kinda got screwed outta the crown last year, so I’m hoping she can get a win this time.”

“It’s sweet how much you love her,” her mother comments, and Toni finds she actually believes her. “So, tell me then, how did you ask her?”

“To go out?”

“To _prom_.”

Toni raises an eyebrow as she shrugs. “I didn’t really. We’ve been dating for so long and we’re running together, it was kind of implied…” She trails off when she notices the look the older woman is giving her. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Karla tries to brush it off, before changing her mind. “It’s just— obviously I don’t know Cheryl as well as you do, but if senior prom is as big of a deal as I remember it being back in my day, getting asked in some grand way is a big part of the experience.”

Her first instinct is to laugh, because that just sounds like some rom-com propaganda, but then she thinks of Cheryl and how much more seriously she’s taking this whole prom thing and...

“Wait, did I fuck up?” she worries. “Do you think she expected that?”

“I don’t know,” Karla relents with a light laugh, picking up on how quickly her offhanded words have gotten into Toni’s head. “Like I said, you know Cheryl much better than I do. Do you think that’s something she’d want?”

And all it takes to consider it is a second before Toni knows the answer.

“Fuck,” she mumbles, suddenly thinking of nothing else but this, even as her long lost mother (kinda, whatever, let her be dramatic) sits across from her. “Prom is in less than a week and we’ve been talking about going together for months. Is it too late?”

“Baby, it’s never too late,” her mother tells her meaningfully, and even though she doesn’t let the sentiment linger for too long, Toni doesn’t miss it. “I can help you think of something good. I mean, if you want.”

Their eyes meet and the moment is heavy — another one of those big normal ones — and Toni doesn’t overthink her answer too much before she gives it.

“Yeah, okay,” she agrees with surprising ease and no regret after. “That’d be cool.”

“Okay,” Karla nods, struggling to contain another smile. “Let me go order some lunch for us and we can brainstorm.”

She’s sliding out of the booth before Toni can process it, but as she stands, the younger girl has an order all ready to share, since she gets it all the time. “I’ll have a—”

“Double cheeseburger, extra cheese, no pickle, light on the onions,” her mother interrupts her, reciting Toni’s regular order effortlessly. “I remember.”

She doesn’t wait to hear her daughter’s response before she turns and heads towards the counter, but all Toni says after she’s gone is, “Thanks, Ma.”

**xii.**

The next three hours are spent coming up with and then planning every detail of the most perfect promposal tailor made for Cheryl Blossom, and it’s nice.

They don’t talk about any more of the important stuff yet — like jail, and shitty boyfriends, and her exile from the Serpents, or even the race for valedictorian she’s decided to actively strive for — but the conversations they do have are easy and light and fun and… nice.

And when they part ways, it’s with a tentative hug and with plans to talk again soon to set up another meeting with Cheryl.

So when Toni leaves the diner before her mother does, and finds her waving through the window as she mounts her bike in the parking lot, Toni waves back with a smile and a fluttering in her chest that feels a little bit like optimism.

Cheryl can tell it went well without even having to ask, but she still does.

“It was good,” Toni answers honestly, neither downplaying or overselling. “There’s still a long way to go, but it was a start.”

“Oh, I’m so happy for you, my love,” her girlfriend bems, her entire face lit up as she cups Toni’s and places a congratulatory kiss on her lips. “What all did you discuss?”

“You, mostly,” the pink haired girl smirks as she leans against the kitchen counter to watch Cheryl as she gets back to preparing dinner. The twins are watching cartoons on her iPad at the table. “She wants to meet you again, to apologize for how she acted and make a better impression.”

“Oh?”

“I said only if you’re cool with it,” Toni rushes to assure her. “You don’t have to give her another chance just because I did. She said some shitty things.”

But Cheryl just shakes her head, her red ponytail swaying as she adjusts the oven dials before turning around to face her. “Don’t be silly, T. I’d be honored to meet your mother again.”

“Really?” she questions even though she’s not really surprised, and opens her arms for the redhead to slip into when she reaches her. “You really don’t have to.”

“I want to,” the redhead confirms as she settles against her and she wraps her arms around her waist. “Your family is my family. Right?”

Toni smiles big and bright, her eyes dancing as she gives her girl a resolute nod and then another kiss. “Baby, there’s no family without you.”

**xii.**

(Toni takes Cheryl on a date to the Bijou for a movie two days later, where the last trailer is a mediocrely shot video of Toni making a complete fool of herself acting out a cheesy script her mother helped her write, that ends with the real her standing up in front of a movie theatre full of people and asking her girlfriend to go to prom with her.

Cheryl says yes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all we wrote. Please let us know what you thought on our take on Toni's family and the potential drama that could come with it, and feel free to follow us on Twitter @mylittlefaith and @chasingcrown.


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